Behavior and Ethology Commons^™

Social Partners And Temperature Jointly Affect Morning Foraging Activity Of Small Birds In Winter, Anastasia E. Madsen, Laura N. Vander Meiden, Daizaburo Shizuka

Papers in Behavior in Biological Sciences

Daily foraging activity of small wintering birds is classically thought to be driven by the need to gather enough energy reserves to survive each night. A separate line of research has shown that sociality is a major driver in winter foraging activities in many species. Here, we used wintering birds as a study system to move toward an integrative understanding of the influence of energy requirements and sociality on foraging ecology. We used RFID-enabled feeders in Lincoln, Nebraska, USA in January–March 2019 to measure foraging activity in two species (downy woodpeckers, Dryobates pubescens, and white-breasted nuthatches, Sitta carolinensis). …