“Strange behaviours” of parents at the nest in an avian prey species as a potential source of bias when studying nest predation and signs left by different predators

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Abstract

In most passerines, parent birds clean their nests. Egg shells, fecal sacs, and dead nestlings, as well as foreign objects, for example, leaf and twig debris, as they appear, are usually removed from nests in one or another way. If, for one reason or another (nest predation, inclement weather, starvation etc.), all offspring die, parents abandon the nest with egg or/and nestling remains. Finding one or another nest empty and intact before the earliest possible fledging date, observers who monitor nests usually attribute the failure to predation. Automated cameras placed at 148 Fieldfare (Turdus pilaris) nests in 2016–2020 to study nest predation in Moscow City, Russia documented two cases of sanitation (by females) of entire and almost entire (all but one dead nestling) broods of dead nestlings that had died due to inclement weather. This information is one of the very few, probably the second, and for Eurasian species probably the first published evidence of such a behaviour in passerines. In addition, eight cases of removal by parents of the traces of predation were recorded immediately or soon after (within 0.1– 4.2 hours) complete depredation of nest contents: eating at the nest or the removal by parents of egg shells, remains of egg contents, as well as feathers lost by parents as a result of predator attacks, an active or passive elimination of disturbances in the lining of the nest cup. Complete or partial “concealment of evidence” by parents occurred in about every four depredated nests, including those in which predators did not leave any “evidence”. The removal by parents of all evidence of clutch/brood failure that had happened for any reason, not only due to predation, was recorded in approximately every third nest from which all offspring disappeared without a trace before the earliest possible fledging date. These behaviours of parents could possibly be considered as bringing them to the point of absurdity, “by inertia”, a sequence of stereotypic actions to maintain cleanliness, as well as the lining of the nest. An observation was also made of a female adding fresh lining to the nest cup on top of a dead, ca. 7-day old nestling from the failed previous brood and then laying a replacement clutch. All these cases are interesting not only because they provide new information on parental behaviour in the Fieldfare. These “strange behaviours” are also a potential source of bias when studying nest predation and signs left by different predatory species with traditional methods for monitoring the nests, with neither video monitoring nor automatic photography. Furthermore, it must not be excluded that, under some circumstances, even estimates of the relative frequency of different causes of nest failure can be biased due to these behavioural curiosities. That is why it is important to know how many and how frequently do bird species show similar behaviours.

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N. S. Morozov

Severtsov Institute of Ecology and Evolution, Russian Academy of Sciences

Author for correspondence.
Email: morozovn33@gmail.com
Russian Federation, Moscow, 119071

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11. Fig. 1. Fieldfare nest with six chicks aged ~5 to 7.5 days without visible injuries, which died (no later than midday on May 10) during bad weather on May 8–10, 2017 (Moscow State University territory, Lebedeva Street, Vorobyovy Gory, Moscow, May 11, 2017; photo by the author).

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12. Fig. 2. A fieldfare nest with old, well-preserved remains of chicks aged ~6–7 days, which presumably died during bad weather on May 8–10, 2017 (Moscow State University Sports Complex, Vorobyovy Gory, Moscow, June 7, 2017; photo by the author).

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13. Fig. 3. Fragments of events (a–o, given in chronological order) in the nest of the fieldfare with five chicks that died at the age of ~7 to 9 days due to bad weather on May 7–9, 2017 (territory of the sports complex of Moscow State University, Vorobyovy Gory, Moscow; frames from video recordings made by a Bushnell NatureView HD Cam with Live View camera trap, Moscow time UTC+3): a – female on the nest with three dead and two alive chicks (May 8, 13:50); b – male on the nest with four dead and one alive chicks (this and subsequent pictures were taken on May 9, this one – at 9:49); c, d – the female grabbed one of the four dead chicks by the end of the wing (c) and carries it (d) out of the nest (10:37); d, e – the female carries out the next one, one of the three remaining dead chicks (10:45); f – the female pulls the living chick by the bases of the growing flight feathers on the left wing, swallows the torn out feathers (10:46); h – an opening and a little blood are visible on the left wing of the living chick at the site of the flight feathers torn out by the female (11:08); i, j – the female eats on the spot (i – 11:56), less often carries away from the nest (j – 12:08) the growing feathers in their cases, torn out by her from the wing of the fourth, not yet ejected dead chick; l, m – the female pulls the upper beak of the fourth dead chick and almost pulls it out of the nest (12:46); n – ~ half an hour before the disappearance of the fourth dead chick from the nest (in the photo it is covered by an adult bird), the female again begins to pull feathers from the wing of the living chick and eats them (13:45); o – the male brought an earthworm, which the weakened chick was unable to either swallow or hold in its beak (14:35).

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14. Fig. 4. Fragments of events (a–p, given in chronological order) in the nest of a fieldfare with five chicks that died at the age of ~6–6.5 to 9–9.5 days due to rains in late May 2020 (Akademika Khokhlova Street near the Physics Department of Moscow State University, Vorobyovy Gory, Moscow; the pictures were taken with a Bushnell NatureView HD Cam with Live View camera trap): a, b, c – 3 minutes after throwing out the dead chick, the female tries to take the “youngest” of the four living chicks out of the nest, grabbing it by the wing with her beak, but does not complete this attempt (May 30, ~13:16); g, d - having pulled one of the three dead chicks out of the water at the bottom of the tray, the female placed its body on one of the other two bodies, and its neck and head on the upper edge of the nest (May 31, ~8:20); e–i - the female grabbed one of the two remaining dead chicks with her beak (e), placed it sideways on the upper edge of the nest and a thick branch running close to it, and flew away, leaving the body of the chick in this position for 8–10 sec (g), and upon returning, pulled it back into the tray (z, i) (May 31, ~13:20–13:22); k–m – the female pulled one of the two bodies out of the water at the bottom of the tray (k), left it lying on the upper edge of the nest with its head resting on the second body (l) for 3 seconds, and then threw it out of the nest (m) (May 31, ~16:32); n, o – the female throws out the last dead chick (May 31, ~16:33); p – the empty nest was visited by a long-eared owl (June 1, ~1:29). The camera trap timer readings had to be slightly adjusted, so the time of day is given approximately.

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15. Fig. 5. In the morning, the male eats the remaining feathers of a female in the nest, which was captured by a long-eared owl at night (territory of the SAI MSU, Vorobyovy Gory, Moscow, June 5, 2016, 4:27; frame from a video recording made by a Seelock Spromise S128 camera trap).

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16. Fig. 6. Actions of a pair of fieldfares during and after the destruction of their clutch by a red squirrel (near the Chemistry Department of Moscow State University, Vorobyovy Gory, Moscow, May 3, 2017; video footage taken with a Seelock Spromise S128 camera trap): a – a pair of birds attacking a squirrel (6:09); b – the nest immediately after the destruction of the clutch (6:10); c – while both parents were eating the eggshells, the male (top) took a large fragment of the shell in his beak to carry it out of the nest (6:12); d – the nest 30 minutes after the squirrel left, after the parents eliminated the traces of its attack (6:40); d, f – the female “forced out” the male, who had climbed into the tray, from the tray (d – he flies away) and sat down in the empty nest (f) (8:32).

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17. Fig. 7. Fragments of events (a–d, given in chronological order) in the nest of a fieldfare with five small chicks and one egg, stolen in three stages by gray crows (park between the Physics and Chemistry Faculties of Moscow State University, Vorobyovy Gory, Moscow, May 8, 2018; video footage taken with a Bushnell NatureView HD Cam with Live View camera trap): a – 2 min after the crows have stolen four of the five chicks, the female fieldfare takes a bunch of nesting material out of the tray (5:41); b – the egg is the last to be stolen (5:46); c - after the crows have kidnapped her offspring, the female not only sits in the empty nest, but also periodically tamps the tray: quickly working her legs, she presses her chest on the bottom for 1.5-3 seconds, and with the folds of her half-spread wings, crop, throat and undertail simultaneously - on the walls of the tray (6:14); d - sitting in the empty nest, the female also straightens the dry blades of grass sticking out of its upper edge (6:14); d - the male tries to pass an earthworm, brought to the chicks more than an hour after their disappearance, to the female sitting in the empty nest (7:00).

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18. Fig. 8. Fieldfare removing the remains of a clutch of four eggs destroyed by a jay right in their nest (student car park of Moscow State University, Vorobyovy Gory, Moscow, June 3, 2018; video footage taken with a Seelock Spromise S128 camera trap): a – the jay reached the fieldfare’s nest unnoticed (12:42); b – the fieldfare (most likely a female) carries out the shell of one of the eggs eaten by the jay from the nest (12:49).

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