{"id":15839,"date":"2013-10-15T14:59:06","date_gmt":"2013-10-15T18:59:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/?p=15839"},"modified":"2018-01-31T12:47:18","modified_gmt":"2018-01-31T17:47:18","slug":"food-vs-safety-risk-management-for-chickadees","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/food-vs-safety-risk-management-for-chickadees\/","title":{"rendered":"Food vs. Safety: Risk Management for Chickadees"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"alignright size-large\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/Chickadee-Read.jpg\" srcset=\"\" sizes=\"\" alt=\"A chickadee must weigh the risks of starving to death on a winter\u2019s night or being caught by a raptor while eating some sunflower seeds. Photo by marie Read.\" loading=\"lazy\" \/><figcaption>A chickadee must weigh the risks of starving to death on a winter\u2019s night or being caught by a raptor while eating some sunflower seeds. <em>Photo by <a href=\"http:\/\/www.marieread.com\/\">Marie Read<\/a>.<\/em><\/figcaption>\n              <\/figure><\/div>\n<div class=\"wp-block-group sidebar-alignright sidebar-space order-bottom\"><div class=\"article-list list-style alignright\"><h2 class=\"article-list-header\">More From Living Bird<\/h2><ul><li class=\"article-item\"><div class=\"article-item-container\"><div class=\"article-item-media  content-living-bird-toc\"><figure class=\"article-item-media-ratio\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/BestBInosTOC.jpg\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/BestBInosTOC.jpg 563w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/BestBInosTOC-240x135.jpg 240w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/BestBInosTOC-480x270.jpg 480w\" sizes=\"\" alt=\"Autumn 2013 Living Bird\" loading=\"lazy\" \/><\/figure><\/div><div class=\"article-item-body\"><span class=\"article-item-header\">Living Bird Autumn 2013\u2014Table of Contents<\/span><\/div><\/div><\/li><li class=\"article-item\"><div class=\"article-item-container\"><div class=\"article-item-media  content-living-bird-toc\"><figure class=\"article-item-media-ratio\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/living-bird-latest.png\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/living-bird-latest.png 720w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/living-bird-latest-240x180.png 240w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/living-bird-latest-480x360.png 480w\" sizes=\"\" alt=\"Living Bird-latest issue\" loading=\"lazy\" \/><\/figure><\/div><div class=\"article-item-body\"><span class=\"article-item-header\">Living Bird Magazine\u2014Latest Issue<\/span><\/div><\/div><\/li><li class=\"article-item\"><div class=\"article-item-container\"><div class=\"article-item-media  content-article\"><figure class=\"article-item-media-ratio\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/living-bird-acrhive.png\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/living-bird-acrhive.png 720w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/living-bird-acrhive-240x180.png 240w, https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/living-bird-acrhive-480x360.png 480w\" sizes=\"\" alt=\"Living Bird archives\" loading=\"lazy\" \/><\/figure><\/div><div class=\"article-item-body\"><span class=\"article-item-header\">Living Bird Magazine Archives<\/span><\/div><\/div><\/li><\/ul><\/div><\/div>\n<div class=\"wp-block-group sidebar-alignright sidebar-space order-bottom\"><!--HubSpot Call-to-Action Code -->\r\n<span class=\"hs-cta-wrapper\" id=\"hs-cta-wrapper-096b8ce3-0e2d-46c5-bbf7-12de3323c8da\">\r\n    <span class=\"hs-cta-node hs-cta-096b8ce3-0e2d-46c5-bbf7-12de3323c8da\" id=\"hs-cta-096b8ce3-0e2d-46c5-bbf7-12de3323c8da\">\r\n        <!--[if lte IE 8]><div id=\"hs-cta-ie-element\"><\/div><![endif]-->\r\n        <a href=\"http:\/\/cta-redirect.hubspot.com\/cta\/redirect\/95627\/096b8ce3-0e2d-46c5-bbf7-12de3323c8da\" ><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"hs-cta-img\" id=\"hs-cta-img-096b8ce3-0e2d-46c5-bbf7-12de3323c8da\" style=\"border-width:0px;\" src=\"https:\/\/no-cache.hubspot.com\/cta\/default\/95627\/096b8ce3-0e2d-46c5-bbf7-12de3323c8da.png\"  alt=\"subscribe to Living Bird magazine\" loading=\"lazy\" \/><\/a>\r\n    <\/span>\r\n    <script charset=\"utf-8\" src=\"https:\/\/js.hscta.net\/cta\/current.js\"><\/script>\r\n    <script type=\"text\/javascript\">\r\n        hbspt.cta.load(95627, '096b8ce3-0e2d-46c5-bbf7-12de3323c8da', {});\r\n    <\/script>\r\n<\/span>\r\n<!-- end HubSpot Call-to-Action Code -->\r\n\r\n<\/div>\n\n<p><em>A Cornell Lab study investigates the survival strategies of feeder birds in winter.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>What weighs more heavily on the mind of a Black-capped Chickadee that regularly patronizes a backyard bird feeder in February\u2014the possibility of starving to death on a cold winter\u2019s night, or the chance it might get eaten by a hawk while snatching some birdseed?<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s a question Cornell Lab of Ornithology scientists David Bonter, Ben Zuckerberg, and Wes Hochachka had as they designed a research study to analyze the visitation patterns of backyard birds to feeders. Risk management may be a hot topic in business books these days, but it\u2019s also something Black-capped Chickadees engage in as they try to stay alive.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf you eat too much seed early in the day and get fat, your takeoff angles and flight speeds are lower, and you run a greater risk of getting eaten by predators,\u201d said Bonter. \u201cBut in winter, birds need to eat enough during daylight to get through 14 to 16 hours of darkness and cold temperatures. So they\u2019ve got to make a trade-off between starvation versus predation risk.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>To look deeper at that trade-off, Bonter, his partners, and a staff of several Cornell undergraduate students tallied the comings and goings of feeder birds. Bonter and his crew set up smart feeders near the Cornell Lab\u2019s headquarters in Ithaca, New York, that were rigged with radio frequency identification (RFID) technology. They also captured and outfitted four species of birds (Black-capped Chickadees, Tufted Titmice, White-breasted Nuthatches, and House Finches) with little RFID tags so the smart feeders would automatically record every bird\u2019s visit (in much the same way that some credit cards offer tap-and-go payment with RFID tags). During two winters, from 2009 to 2011, Bonter recorded 472,368 feeder visits by 94 tagged birds.<\/p>\n<p>Poring over the data, Bonter noticed one thing immediately\u2014chickadees are busy birds. Individual chickadees were taking as many as 50 sunflower seeds a\u00a0day in December; that\u2019s like an average person eating 100 pounds of hamburgers in a day (or in the case of caching chickadees, stockpiling some of them to eat later in winter).<\/p>\n<p>Plotting feeder-visitation data over daily timelines, patterns of visitation emerged. All four species began hitting the feeders about half an hour before sunrise and continued to visit with increasing frequency as each hour passed, peaking at about two hours before sunset. After that, feeder visitation declined sharply for three species (White-breasted Nuthatches continued until sunset).<\/p>\n<p>These findings ran counter to the long-standing theory among ornithologists that birds feed primarily in the early morning to recover from the long winter night and in the late afternoon to prepare for darkness, feeding less frequently during midday to avoid falling victim to predators. Instead, the birds in Bonter\u2019s study fed continuously from first light to a point in midafternoon, after which their visits tailed off abruptly.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat\u2019s a thing I still can\u2019t wrap my head around,\u201d he said. \u201cIn the early part of the day, it\u2019s like the birds are reasoning, \u2018Who cares how risky it is to forage during the day, because if I don\u2019t eat I\u2019m dead anyway.\u2019 But then why knock off and go to bed early with a few hours of daylight left?<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey\u2019re either eating until they hit a satiation point, or they\u2019re stopping before dusk to avoid predation by nocturnal predators, which they perceive to be a greater risk.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In other words, feeding while the hawks are out may be a risk that chickadees, titmice, and finches are willing to run, but eating when the screech-owls roam is a different story. Bonter\u2019s anecdotal experience with screech-owls may back up that theory. In other ornithological fieldwork, he has found large piles of songbirds stashed away in the nest boxes of Eastern Screech-Owls.<\/p>\n<p>As for the potential broader impact of his study, Bonter says it may be one of the first steps toward making backyard feeders more attuned to the needs of birds.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe, as a society, spend millions of dollars a year on birdseed. We\u2019re conducting an enormous continent-scale experiment on providing supplemental food to birds, and we\u2019re not paying any attention to the results,\u201d he said. \u201cThis study is a step toward examining how birdseed affects survival and social behaviors. Our next goal is to better understand the annual foraging patterns of wild birds, and how they use feeders. We may be able to tell people with backyard feeders how they can best improve the survival of the birds they feed.\u201d<br \/>\n<!--http:\/\/digital.livingbird.org\/livingbird\/autumn_2013#pg11--><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A Cornell Lab study investigates the survival strategies of feeder birds in winter. What weighs more heavily on the mind of a Black-capped Chickadee that regularly patronizes a backyard bird<a class=\"excerpt-read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/news\/food-vs-safety-risk-management-for-chickadees\/\" title=\"ReadFood vs. Safety: Risk Management for Chickadees\">&#8230; Read more &raquo;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":15864,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_tec_requires_first_save":true,"_birdpress_living_bird_toc":0,"_birdpress_living_bird_toc_title":"","_birdpress_featured_image":false,"_birdpress_hero_toggle":false,"_birdpress_hero_type":"image","_birdpress_hero_image_type":"image","_birdpress_hero_style":"default","_birdpress_hero_ratio":"","_birdpress_hero_h1":"","_birdpress_hero_media_id":0,"_birdpress_hero_media_array_id":[],"_birdpress_hero_media_array":[],"_birdpress_hero_media":0,"_birdpress_hero_video_id":0,"_birdpress_hero_video":0,"_birdpress_hero_youtube":"","_birdpress_hero_content":true,"_birdpress_hero_byline":"","_birdpress_hero_byline_bottom":"","_birdpress_hero_button_link":"","_birdpress_hero_button_text":"","_birdpress_hero_button_color":"","_birdpress_hero_date":false,"original_guid":"","_birdpress_hide_search":false,"_birdpress_page_width":"","_birdpress_global_cta":false,"_birdpress_widget_sidebar":"","_birdpress_next_article":0,"_birdpress_next_article_title":"","_birdpress_prev_article":0,"_birdpress_prev_article_title":"","_birdpress_sub_navigation_id":0,"_birdpress_sub_navigation":"","_birdpress_sub_navigation_title":false,"_birdpress_anchor_navigation_id":0,"_birdpress_anchor_navigation":"","_birdpress_postType":"both","_birdpress_categoryID":0,"_birdpress_tagID":0,"_birdpress_parentPostID":0,"_birdpress_parentPostTitle":"","_birdpress_menuID":0,"_birdpress_menuName":"","_birdpress_listHeader":"","_birdpress_listLayout":"card-display","_birdpress_listColumns":"","_birdpress_maxItems":12,"_birdpress_listPaginate":true,"_birdpress_displaySort":true,"_birdpress_sortOrder":"DESC","_birdpress_sortBy":"date","_birdpress_listID":"","_birdpress_listClass":"","_birdpress_displayImages":true,"_birdpress_displayCaptions":false,"_birdpress_displayExcerpts":false,"_birdpress_attTop":"","_birdpress_attBottom":"","_birdpress_showLogos":false,"_birdpress_post_logo":0,"_EventAllDay":false,"_EventTimezone":"","_EventStartDate":"","_EventEndDate":"","_EventStartDateUTC":"","_EventEndDateUTC":"","_EventShowMap":false,"_EventShowMapLink":false,"_EventURL":"","_EventCost":"","_EventCostDescription":"","_EventCurrencySymbol":"","_EventCurrencyCode":"","_EventCurrencyPosition":"","_EventDateTimeSeparator":"","_EventTimeRangeSeparator":"","_EventOrganizerID":[],"_EventVenueID":[],"_OrganizerEmail":"","_OrganizerPhone":"","_OrganizerWebsite":"","_VenueAddress":"","_VenueCity":"","_VenueCountry":"","_VenueProvince":"","_VenueState":"","_VenueZip":"","_VenuePhone":"","_VenueURL":"","_VenueStateProvince":"","_VenueLat":"","_VenueLng":"","_VenueShowMap":false,"_VenueShowMapLink":false,"_tribe_blocks_recurrence_rules":"","_tribe_blocks_recurrence_description":"","_tribe_blocks_recurrence_exclusions":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_topic":0,"wds_primary_content-format":0,"wds_primary_cornell-lab-project":0,"wds_primary_host-project":0,"wds_primary_read-more-tag":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"topic":[997,1036,998,1043],"content-format":[1055],"cornell-lab-project":[1069],"host-project":[1137],"read-more-tag":[],"class_list":["post-15839","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","topic-biology","topic-food-foraging","topic-news-and-features","topic-science-conservation-news-and-features","content-format-article","cornell-lab-project-living-bird-magazine","host-project-living-bird"],"metadata":{"associated-posts":[""],"wpa_off":[""],"_edit_lock":["1517420700:4"],"_edit_last":["4"],"_thumbnail_id":["15864"],"wdsi_message_id":[""],"wdsi_do_not_show":[""],"custom-byline":["<h5>By 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