Elsevier

Behavioural Processes

Volume 162, May 2019, Pages 162-166
Behavioural Processes

Does the sex and age of birds and the size of human settlements affect recapturing of the Great Tit (Parus major) at bird feeders?

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.beproc.2019.03.007Get rights and content

Highlights

  • Birds may avoid recapture for some time after they have been captured.

  • Period between capture-recapture of Great Tits was depended from their sex and age.

  • Size of the human settlements did not affect time to recapture of tits.

Abstract

Urban and rural habitats provide different conditions to wintering birds mainly due to different access to bird feeders. Returning to the food sources, even under the stress related to trapping, could play an important role in the energetic budget of wintering birds. We studied the duration of period between the first and the second capture of the Great Tits (Parus major) caught and ringed at bird feeders. We expected that recapturing of birds, which could be connected with their experience, would depend on their sex, age and on the size of human settlements (urban vs. rural areas), which could modify the behavior of wintering birds. We found that the length of the period was the shortest for immature females and the longest for adult males (the difference being 3.8 days in average). In contrast to more experienced adults, more frequent visits in case of immature tits, which increased probability of being trapped, could be affected by their weaker condition and smaller size, which resulted in feeding whenever it was possible. At the same time we did not find any differences between urban (duration of 29.5 days in average) and rural (28.5 days) areas. Differentiation in bird densities, access to feeders and various environmental factors seems to be the reason why this issue awaits further, more detailed studies including influence of weather on the behavior of birds.

Introduction

For birds, winter is a crucial period of the year round life cycle (Newton, 1998). During this period the snow cover makes many food sources unavailable and short days leave very little time for the birds to search for food. Moreover, energy consumption grows when the weather conditions deteriorate and birds must increase their feeding intensity to survive this period (Siriwardena et al., 2008; Golawski and Kasprzykowski, 2010). Human settlements may be especially favourable for the birds during winter, when the weather conditions are harsh and the food sources are limited. It is particularly important that in the cities the waste food of restaurants, schools, supermarkets, and especially bird-feeders are widely available for birds (Tryjanowski et al., 2015a, 2016).

In relation to the number of bird feeders in the urban areas, trapping birds for scientific reasons is relatively easier here in winter (Dingemanse and De Goede, 2004; Golawski et al., 2015). Capturing birds for ringing and further subsequent manipulations related to measurements is a source of stress for the birds (Le Maho et al., 1992; Cabezas et al., 2012), who in turn may change their behaviour in response to capturing. Studies on avian migrants showed that they may depart from a winter staging site as a reaction to capturing (Nisbet and Medway, 1972). Moreover, birds may avoid capturing for some time after they have been captured. This reaction might be permanent, or it may last only for a short time (Pradel, 1993; Roche et al., 2013). On the other hand, Salewski et al. (2007) argued that birds do not modify their behaviour so strongly due to catching activity, so capturing them does not have a significant impact on recapture probability. Moreover, several avian studies have shown that all individuals in a population are not equally catchable (Pollock et al., 1990; Senar et al., 1999). Possible changes in the behaviour of birds as a reaction to capturing are therefore not thoroughly investigated and it is not really known how common they are and which factors they mostly depend on (Salewski et al., 2007; Camacho et al., 2017).

Based on studies done on the Great Tit (Parus major), the dominant species visiting feeders in winter in Poland and many other European countries (Tryjanowski et al., 2015c), we tested the factors affecting the length of the period (number of days) between the first and the second capture of individual birds. We expected this period to be longer for the birds living in cities because generally birds show greater curiosity in searching for food sources and have much wider access here to the feeders in comparison to village birds (Liker and Bókony, 2009; Sol et al., 2011; Tryjanowski et al., 2016). We also expected to detect differences between sex and age groups. Immature tits with inferior social status seem to forage more intensively and thus they are expected to be recaptured in the nets earlier (Gosler, 2002). Furthermore, sex can also play an important role here as it has already been proved that males first discover some new food sources and they do it faster in the cities than in the villages (Tryjanowski et al., 2015b). Besides, adult birds should be more experienced and better avoid dangers (Erritzoe et al., 2003; Orłowski, 2005) and we predicted that they might avoid the mist-nets more efficiently (Senar et al., 1999).

Section snippets

Study area

Study plots were located in six human settlements across Poland (Fig. 1). Three rural sites were situated in villages with the population not exceeding 2 000 people: Przebendowo (N Poland) was located in an overgrown park near an old manor house. Wapnica in NW Poland was situated in a garden separated from the village by a forest. The last rural study plot was Mirków (SW Poland), located in an old orchard. The other three study sites were located in the cities, where the population exceeded 300

Results

Altogether we ringed 3 710 Great Tits, of which 970 were recaptured (26.1% of all, Table 1). Immatures were the most numerous, accounting for about 75–80% of all captured and recaptured tits (Fig. 2). The proportions of sex and age groups among the recaptured birds were very similar to those in all the captured birds and the differences were not statistically significant (G-test, G = 0.76, df = 3, p =  0.859). Moreover, there were no significant differences in proportions of birds according to

Discussion

We found that the only two factors affecting the length of the period between the capture and the first recapture were age and sex of tits. Immature females were recaptured earlier than other groups of tits, especially than adults males which were recaptured almost four days later. Our results are similar to those shown by Senar et al. (1999), where immature individuals of both sexes had the highest recapture probabilities, followed by adult males, while adult females had the lowest recapture

Contribution of the authors

AG, MP conceived and designed the study. MP, PF, KrS, KaS, GK, DK collected field data. AG and JK performed statistical analyses and wrote parts of the manuscript (methods, results). MP, PF, KrS, KaS, AC wrote parts of manuscript and gave comments on the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Compliance with ethical standards

All the procedures performed in studies involving animals were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institution or practice at which the studies were conducted. All the birds were ringed according to the rules of the Polish bird ringing scheme. They are determined by superior regulations, i.e. the nature conservation act (Ustawa z dnia 16 kwietnia 2004 r. o ochronie przyrody, (Dz. U. z 2013 r. poz. 627, z późn. zm.), the regulation on bird ringing (Rozporządzenie_Ministra_Środowiska

Declarations of interest

None.

Acknowledgements

Authors are very grateful to all participants who helped in the fieldwork, especially to Monika Broniszewska and Paweł Musiuk and two anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments on the manuscript. This research complies with the current law in Poland. The results of the research carried out under the research theme No. 75/94/s (A. Golawski) were financed from the science grant granted by the Ministry of Science and Higher Education, Poland.

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