Ovenbirds

One of my classmates in my Master Naturalist class is a student. This summer he will be working on a research project studying ovenbirds in the Chippewa National Forest. His job will be to tromp through the forest looking for ovenbirds. They are not easy to find. Ovenbirds are nondescript brown with an orange racing stripe on the top of their tiny heads. They are in the warbler family - from the primitive branch of the warbler family tree. They are so primitive they nest on the ground. Their nests are hard to find and look like an upside down grassy dome. Each nest has about 8 eggs and the birds can lay two hatches if the first nest is disturbed and the eggs are destroyed. Only one out of every 72 eggs makes it to live long enough to migrate to central America in the winter. Ovenbirds survive only because they have so many offspring. The researchers put little telemetry backpacks on the birds - around their little legs and around their wings. Each backpack is the size of a battery watch with an antennae. The backpacks are designed to fall off after about 60 days. He has found the backpacks buried under the ground. The predator that eats most of the eggs hides the eggs and baby birds underground to come back and snack on later. And what is the largest predator of ovenbirds? Not what I expected. Not fox (although fox do eat them) and not snakes and not squirrels. The predator who eats the most ovenbirds is

That is right. A chipmunk. Look how innocent he is there with his red hooded sweatshirt with the big gold A. He's a predator. He eats more ovenbird eggs and ovenbird hatchlings than any other animal.
The student told a funny story about ovenbird research. They were tracking an ovenbird signal and it seemed to be flying at supersonic speeds. They couldn't figure how the ovenbird could fly that fast until they looked up and saw a hawk. The hawk had eaten an ovenbird, backpack and all. There is some concern about the danger of the battery to a hawk. I understand that hawks are like owls. They burp up the stuff they can't digest and spit it out.