White-tailed Deer (Odocoileus virginianus) Predation
on Grassland Songbird Nestlings
Introduction
Although white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) are considered herbivores, they have been reported to eat fish (Olson, 1932; Shea, 1973; Case and McCullough, 1987) and insects (Shaw, 1963), and have been suspected of eating birds caught in mist nets (Carlson and Sloan, 1975; Allan, 1978). Sealy (1994) observed a white-tailed deer eating a warbler in a mist net and suspected deer predation at a yellow warbler (Dendroica petechia) nest. In 1996 we began a study of predation on grassland songbird nests in North Dakota using miniature video cameras to monitor nests (Pietz and Granfors, 2000). We report four occurrences of nest predation by white-tailed deer that were videotaped during 1996-1999.
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