The other day I made the following query on this forum, and promised to
report results:

  "I would like to pass along some generalizations made by some of
Ohio's respected ornithologists of the past, to see if modern observers
can verify or contradict them. Please offer informed comments pro or con
on the following:
        1. Have you ever seen a cedar waxwing spend more than a brief
period on the ground?
        2. Have you ever seen anything other than an American goldfinch
nesting in a peach tree?
        3. Have you ever seen a blue grosbeak nest that did not contain a
snake-skin?
        4. Have you ever found a cowbird egg in the nest of a swallow,
wren, nuthatch, or titmouse?"

I got a disappointingly small number of replies about these stated
expert opinions, even though I thought they were pretty provocative.
Maybe they're just more accurate than I thought. Numbers 1, 2, and 4 are
from John Maynard Wheaton's 1882 "Report on the Birds of Ohio." He was a
meticulous observer, albeit with only local expertise. Number 3 comes
from Oliver Davie's 1900 work "Nests and Eggs of the Birds of North
America; also from Columbus, he was the expert of the day on the topic.
        1. As for waxwings, a local observer reported having seen them on the
ground this year, probably hunting Japanese beetles. I think her
observation is a valid counter-example. Still, you have to think this is
an infrequent behavior, given Wheaton's experience. A reader from
Massachusetts reports seeing Bohemian waxwings drinking from puddles,
and eating fallen crabapples revealed by melting snow. I can easily
imagine cedar waxwings doing likewise, but maybe not often.
        2. I heard nothing on this one. Should I presume no one can refute it?
Don't we have orchardist readers who have seen even a robin's nest in a
peach tree? Or not?
        3. Not a whisper from anyone on the snake-skin. I can believe it,
though. Many of us have observed that great crested flycatchers love to
use snake-skins in nest construction (they are cavity nesters and you
can't always see this extra adornment), but fewer of us--including yours
truly--knew that blue grosbeaks do likewise. Absent demurral from you
readers, this one will stand.
        4. This was the most interesting assertion to me. I just refound an
article by Lawrence Hicks
<http://elibrary.unm.edu/sora/Auk/v051n03/p0385-p0386.pdf> from 1934,
reporting the examination of nearly 14,500 nests in Ohio, with results
of looking for cowbird parasitism. He reports no parasitism in nests of
swallows, titmice, woodpeckers, wrens, nuthatches, waxwings, catbirds,
or robins. So Hicks's study bears out Wheaton's assertion; his short
note is worth looking at. I heard from several bluebirders, who could
not recall parasitism of swallows, though they rarely had seen it for
house wrens occupying bluebird boxes. I also heard from a researcher in
Oklahoma of a parasitized Bewick's wren nest in a bluebird box there in
1983. Evidently wrens seem to be at least rare victims of cowbirds.
Ehrlich et al. 1988 "The Birder's Handbook" p.422 says tufted titmice
are an "uncommon cowbird host."
        These generalizations seemed so strange, and the generalizers have such
good reputations, that I hope they were at least thought-provoking.
Bill Whan
Columbus


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