STATUS: Common.
HABITAT: Inhabits damp, grass-grown clearings, shallow prairie marshes, tall moist grasslands, sedge marshes often surrounded by bog, and open fens in boreal forests. Prefers hummocky alkaline wetlands.
SPECIAL HABITAT REQUIREMENTS: Moist habitats with dense herbaceous vegetation.
NEST: Builds a well-concealed nest on or near the ground in the luxuriant growth of drier borders of open wetlands, usually of grasses interwoven among standing plant stems, generally in dense vegetation beneath tangles of old dead rushes, grasses, or sedges.
FOOD: Primarily eats insects during summer, but consumes mainly the seeds of weeds and grasses at other times. Gleans both insects and seeds from marsh plants. (Little is known about the food habits of this species.)
REFERENCES: Forbush and May 1955, Easterla 1962, Johnsgard 1979, Murray 1969, Walkinshaw in Bent 1968b.