When do young birds disperse? Tests from studies of golden eagles in Scotland.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Dispersal comprises three broad stages - departure from the natal or breeding locations, subsequent travel, and settlement. These stages are difficult to measure, and vary considerably between sexes, age classes, individuals and geographically. We used tracking data from 24 golden eagles, fitted with long-lived GPS satellite transmitters as nestlings, which we followed during their first year. We estimated the timing of emigration from natal sites using ten previously published methods. We propose and evaluate two new methods. The first of these uses published ranging distances of parents as a measure of the natal home range, with the requirement that juveniles must exceed it for a minimum of 10 days (a literature-based measure of the maximum time that a juvenile can sur

SUBMITTER: Weston ED 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3833264 | biostudies-literature | 2013 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature