Factors Affecting Flushing Distance in Incubating Female Greylag Geese Anser Anser

Abstract

We studied risk-taking behaviour of breeding greylag geese Anser anser in western Poland. Our objectives were to test predictions resulting from the parental investment theory by observing variation in flushing distance for incubatingfemalesinrelationtoclutchsize,stageofincubation,nesttype and number of human visits to the nests. We found that the best predictor of flushing distance was the stage of breeding; a negative relationship was observed between the number of incubation days and the observed flushing distance. Hence, females showed more risky behaviour (shortening their flushing distance) in clutches with a higher probability of hatching, i.e.in agreement with the parental investment theory. We found only a small effect of clutch size in relation to flushing distance and not in the direction expected from the parental investment theory, i.e. females incubating the largest clutches demonstrated the largest escape distance. This finding may be dueto unknown age and experience of particular females which, at least potentially, may underlie the observed variation in flushing distance. We also found that females adjusted their flushing distance depending on nest location and potentially different concealment. We found no effect of repeated human visits. Flushing distance was nearly significantly shorter in unsuccessful females (whose nests were later destroyed) than in successful females. Hypotheses explaining risk-taking differentiation patterns in greylag geese are discussed. Our findings suggest that using exclusively flushing distance (or another single behavioural measure of response to human disturbance) might be misleading and should be used carefully for managing access to wildlife areas.

Factors affecting the responses of female Canada Geese to disturbance during incubation

“…Repeated visits to nests had no influence on the female flushing distance in our study, and similar results have been reported by Sjöberg () for Canada Geese and Osiejuk and Kucyński () for Greylag Geese. Previous authors have suggested that incubating geese might respond to repeated visits by humans in two different ways (Forbes et al.…”

“…In other species of geese, this negative relationship has been reported as either weak (Upland Geese, Chloephaga picta ; measuring egg density rather than nest age, Quillfeldt et al. ) or moderately significant (Greylag Geese, Anser anser ; Osiejuk and Kucyński ). In addition, a negative relationship between flushing distance and nest age was found to be significant for one of eight species of ducks and nearly significant for a second species (Forbes et al.…”

“…Thus, total clutch mass as a proportion of female mass (Ankney and MacInnes , Forbes et al. , Osiejuk and Kucyński ) may better represent female reproductive investment than egg volume.…”

Boldness and Stress Responsiveness as Drivers of Nest‐Site Selection in a Ground‐Nesting Bird

“…Several studies have investigated how nest‐site characteristics affect risk‐taking behaviours (Albrecht & Klvaňa ; Osiejuk & Kuczyński ) and stress physiology (D'Alba et al. ).…”

Escape Distance in Ground-Nesting Birds Differs with Individual Level of Camouflage

“…Blumstein 2006; Møller 2010), we assessed escape behaviour by using an approaching human as a proxy for a predatory threat, and measured the distance at which the bird fled its nest. In nesting birds, escape distances are known to be related to degree of concealment through vegetation cover (Klvan et al 2004;Miller et al 2013), as well as stage of egg development (Osiejuk and Mickiewicz 2007), and colonial versus solitary breeding (Šálek and Cepáková 2006). However, to our knowledge the present study is the first to investigate escape behaviour in relation to directly quantified camouflage, as seen by the visual systems of relevant predators.…”