NOORDEN B VAN (2007) Ageing and growth of Icterine Warbler Hippolais icterina nestlings. LIMOSA 80 (4): 157-163.

During 2003-2007 biometrics of 59 nestlings from16 different nests of IcterineWarbler weremeasured in a study area in the province of Limburg (SE Netherlands). In total these nestlingsweremeasured on 202 occasions. Imeasured body mass (accuracy 0.1 gram), length of wing and 8th primary (0.5 mm) and the length of the tarsus (0.1 mm), fromthe day of hatching (day 0) until day 10. Older chicks tend to leave the nest prematurely when disturbed. The development of the growing chicks is illustrated in figure 1 and the Annex. To decrease the spread of the biometric characteristics and to avoid pseudoreplication in estimation of the growth curves the average values of every nest have been used. For ageing the most useful parameters are body mass (day 0-3), wing length (day 4-6) and the length of the 8th primary (day 7- 10) (table 2). Comparison of the logisticmass growth parameter K between Icterine Warbler and other open nesting passerines shows a value comparable to similarsized species (fig. 3). The biometric characteristics useful for ageing are supported by developments in morphological characteristics (fig. 2).

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