STATUS: Common.
HABITAT: In northern coniferous and deciduous woodlands, inhabits forest openings with grasses, dense shrubs, and scattered clumps of young trees, open spruce and tamarack or white cedar bogs where sphagnum moss is abundant, brushy hillsides, and occasionally dry pine lands. (Little is known about its breeding biology.)
SPECIAL HABITAT REQUIREMENTS: Brushy, semi-open country.
NEST: Nests singly or sometimes in loose colonies. Conceals nest on moist ground, typically in sphagnum-covered hummocks or among grasses, protected by bog plants overhead, or less frequently, on dry hillsides under the cover of shrubs or saplings.
FOOD: Forages on terminal twigs, gleaning while hopping from branch to branch, eating almost entirely insects. Also eats some spiders and fruits.
REFERENCES: Bent 1953a, DeGraff et al. 1980, Griscom and Sprunt 1979, Johnsgard 1979.