TY - JOUR
AU - Greenberg,, Russell
AB - Abstract Females of at least 15 species of North American passerines give distinctive nest departure calls. These calls consist of a series of notes uttered while flying away from the nest. Less often, the call is given while flying to the nest. It is heard during nest-building, incubation, brooding, and nestling care. The behavior is found in emberizid finches and icterines in North America, and possibly muscicapids (Sylviinae) in Europe. It occurs almost exclusively in birds nesting in marshes or grasslands. Birds giving this call could incur a great cost if predators locate nests using these calls. Proposed benefits of calling include reduction of harassment by males, discouragement of settlement by females, promotion of anti-predatory vigilance by mates, advertisement of receptivity for copulation, and distraction of potential predators away from the nest. The reduction of harassment and increased vigilance hypotheses have the strongest support. The behavior is more common in species in which visibility of birds close to the ground is poor and in which the intra-sexual competition among males is intense which thus increases the risk that an already mated female will be mistaken for an intruding male. This content is only available as a PDF. The Condor © 1991 American Ornithological Society
TI - Nest Departure Calls in Female Songbirds
JF - Condor: Ornithological Applications
DO - 10.2307/1368952
DA - 1991-05-01
UR - https://www.deepdyve.com/lp/oxford-university-press/nest-departure-calls-in-female-songbirds-28B10BQMc0
SP - 365
EP - 373
VL - 93
IS - 2
DP - DeepDyve
ER -