The 20th annual Symposium will be held on Thursday, April 23, 2009.

Spying on Incubating House Wrens: Using Minicameras to Observe Behaviors in Nest Boxes
Norris 100, 1:30 PM

Amanda  Engelhard,   '09 10
   Major: Biology
   Hometown: St. Clair Shores, MI

Sponsor(s): E. Dale Kennedy
Support: FURSCA-Bruce A., ’53 and Peggy Sale Kresge, ’53 Science Fellowship, A. Merton Chickering Endowed Professorship in Biology

Abstract: 
We monitored incubation bouts of female House Wrens (Troglodytes aedon) using small, programmable temperature data loggers (iButtons) in nests. However, on hot days, high internal nest temperatures made variations in nest cup temperature difficult to interpret. As a second way to document incubation behavior, we used small video cameras with infrared illumination placed inside lids of nest boxes (N = 44). Video images showed that, in addition to sitting on eggs, females displayed a range of non-incubation behaviors that included shaking, preening, repositioning, and egg turning. The frequency of each behavior was not correlated with temperature even though bout lengths decreased with increasing temperatures. On a few occasions birds were observed eating prey items that either flew into their nest box or were found within the nesting materials during another maneuver. As a measure of metabolic activity, we counted the number of breaths taken per ten-second interval as movements of the chest. A significant negative correlation existed between ambient temperature and the number of breaths per minute (r = -0.529, df = 184, p < 0.0001), suggesting that females have to spend more energy on colder days to warm eggs up to incubation temperature.

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