In grassland ecosystems, snakes may play an important role in the nesting success of songbirds. The objectives of this study were to determine if grassland birds and snakes share preferred habitat and if nesting success can be modeled through relationships between nest sites and preferred snake habitat features. Yellow-bellied racers (Coluber constrictor) were radiotracked on the Konza Prairie and location information, including treatment type and immediate habitat cover, was recorded. Nests of the Dickcissel, Grasshopper Sparrow, Lark Sparrow, Field Sparrow, and Eastern Meadowlark were recorded. Nest success as well as failure that may have been due to snake predation were recorded, and habitat variables at the nest site, local scale, and landscape scale were measured. Principal components analysis was run for habitat features such as litter depth, Robel pole readings, distance to shrubs, forest, rock outcrops, treatment edges, and draws for Dickcissels, then for all species combined. MARK analysis for Dickcissels revealed that shrubby habitat features positively influence nest success. This may be due to the occurrence of both Dickcissels and snakes in shrubby areas, as well as snake foraging strategy (i.e. incidental predation). MARK analysis for all species combined revealed that an overall heterogeneous habitat positively influences nest success. Because the birds monitored have different nesting strategies, the increased nest success due to heterogeneous habitat may be influenced more by nest site preferences than snake predation. These habitat features describe a complex relationship between grassland songbirds and the snake predator community with regards to habitat characteristics.

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