An unusual homing behavior found in the Sichuan Partridge during the early brooding period
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Avian Research Open Access
LETTER TO THE EDITOR
An unusual homing behavior found in the Sichuan Partridge during the early brooding period Yiqiang Fu1,2*, Shufang Wang1, Benping Chen3, Simon Dowell4 and Zhengwang Zhang5*
Abstract In this study, we report an unusual homing behavior of the Sichuan Partridge (Arborophila rufipectus) at the Laojunshan National Nature Reserve, Sichuan Province, China. Hen Sichuan Partridges led the chicks back to the nests where they hatched in the evening and roosted there over night. This behavior lasted 6.7 ± 4.3 nights (range = 1–15; n = 13) after the chicks hatched. At this stage, the hens became very vigilant to predators and human disturbance. If disturbed, they often abandoned the nests immediately and no longer returned thereafter. The ambient temperature at night during the early brooding period of Sichuan Partridge at our study site was ~ 12.4 °C. Our findings suggest that hen Sichuan Partridges may make trade-offs between nest predation risks versus the thermoregulatory needs of their young. Keywords: Arborophila rufipectus, Early brooding period, Homing behavior, Predation risk, Thermoregulation Correspondence In the breeding season, birds build nests to protect their eggs and young from predators and adverse weather conditions (Zheng 2012; Deeming and Reynolds 2015). However, most birds rarely return to their nests after fledging as this could make them more vulnerable to predators and increase exposure to nest ectoparasites (Scholer 2015). There are only a few reports of reuse of old nests by recently fledged young, such as the Ferruginous Hawk (Buteo regalis) in South Dakota, in which the young returned to the nests to obtain food from the adults and to roost for another 2 weeks after fledging (Blair and Schitoskey 1982). Galliformes are a group of precocial species that chicks leave the nest soon after hatching and move around for foraging following the hen (Zheng *Correspondence: [email protected]; [email protected] 1 College of Life Sciences, Sichuan Normal University, Chengdu 610101, Sichuan, China 5 Ministry of Education Key Laboratory for Biodiversity Science and Ecological Engineering, College of Life Sciences, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China Full list of author information is available at the end of the article
2015). There are not any reports in wild Galliformes that the chicks return to their nests during the brooding period (McGowan 1994). The Sichuan Partridge (Arborophila rufipectus) is a globally endangered Galliforme species native to the mountains of southwest China. It builds a domed, and partially enclosed nest with a 6–8 cm × 8–10 cm entrance (Fu et al. 2017). During the breeding season of 2011, we first noted that hen Sichuan Partridges led their newly hatched chicks back to the nests where they were born, and then roosted in the nests all together over night. We continued to observe this behavior in the field from 2011 to 2019. The aims of this study were to describe this unusual homing behavior and preliminarily analyze its ecologica
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