Migratory hummingbirds make their own rules: the decision to resume migration along a barrier
Section snippets
Study Site and Capture Methods
Ruby-throated hummingbirds were captured at a long-term migration station (30°10′N, 88°00′W; Fig. 1) on the Bon Secour National Wildlife Refuge (NWR) in Fort Morgan, Alabama, U.S.A. The site was composed of scrub-shrub habitat and pine forest with Pinus elliottii, Quercus spp., Ilex spp., Smilax spp. and Serenoa repens as the dominant species (for a complete description see Zenzal, Fish, Jones, Ospina, & Moore, 2013). Autumn migrants that stopover at this site are immediately confronted with a
Departure Time
Most hummingbirds (83%, N = 43) departed Fort Morgan between sunrise and noon (mean: 0915 hours CDT, r = 0.80, P < 0.001; Fig. 2). The best supported candidate model contained stopover duration and departure day (ΔAICc = 0.00, AICc weight = 0.25; Table 2), although departure time did not appear to be influenced by departure day (coefficient = −0.03, SE = 0.03). Over half the individuals with departures between sunrise and noon tended to spend the night at the study site before departing (mean: 33.19 ± 45.6 h,
Discussion
A variety of factors are purported to influence the departure time (Müller et al., 2016) and direction (e.g. Deppe et al., 2015) of migrating animals, with foraging ecology and atmospheric conditions the likely primary selective forces on the endogenous migratory programme (Kerlinger & Moore, 1989). In our study, young hummingbirds generally departed from the Fort Morgan Peninsula in the morning, consistent with observations of migrating hummingbirds in the northeastern United States (Hall &
Acknowledgments
We thank the 2011–2014 Fort Morgan banding station field technicians, M. Tabasco and W. Santamaria for assistance in the Yucatan Peninsula, R. Bolus, L. Schofield, E. Swenson, A. Celis-Murillo, W. Cochran and J. Cochran for assistance with telemetry aspects of the project, J. Schaefer and C. Qualls for statistical advice, the 2011–2015 radio tower crews, as well as members of the Migratory Bird Research Group for their support. We also thank the Bon Secour National Wildlife Refuge, Fort Morgan
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