Territorial movements of Black-throated Blue Warblers in a landscape fragmented by forestry

Many forest bird species show inhibition to entering open areas, including crossing habitat gaps. We examined the responses of Black-throated Blue War blers (Dendroica caerulescens) to conspecific song playback within forest, at clearcut-forest ecotones, and across logging roads to assess movements o f this Neotropical migrant into open areas. Males responded readily to song playbacks in all areas, and moved significantly farther into clearcuts tha n they did within intact forest (40.4 +/- 2.9 m and 17.1 +/- 1.2 m, respect ively). Their singing, aggressive trilling, and alarm-calling rates were hi ghest in response to playback from clearcuts, intermediate during road-cros sings, and lowest within forest. Males moved farthest into the oldest regen erating clearcuts (> 15 years old), indicating that vegetation structure al so influences their movement into open areas. Second-year males were more r esponsive than older males, moving farther to reach speakers in all areas, and showing a nonsignificant trend of moving farther into clearcuts. We fou nd that extensive movements into open areas occur in response to simulated territorial intrusion, indicating that small-scale habitat fragmentation by forestry may not disrupt territorial movements of that species.