BIOLOGY OF THE WREN, TROGLODYTES TROGLODYTES,IN A MEDITERRANEAN INSULAR AGROECOSYSTEM

In the last years many species of birds have exploited urban and suburbanhabitats, taking opportunistically advantage of human presence for their nicheparameters. The Wren is one of them and shows a high variability in the choice ofnesting sites in the gardens of the outskirts of Palermo (Sicily). For many years theauthors studied the breeding habits of this small bird, and thanks to the video-taperecordings on the nests, they were able to gather new information on its feeding habitsand parental care. They could establish the role played by both parents, the differentprey types carried to the chicks, and other data, scarcely known in the southern partof distribution of this passerine.