Abstract Background Great diversity exists in the parenting pattern of altricial birds, which has long been considered as an adaptive response to specific environmental conditions but not their life-history style. Methods We examined egg-laying and nestling-raising Grey-backed Shrike ( Lanius tephronotus ) that breeds only once a year on Tibetan Plateau. compared dietary composition its sympatr...

In several vertebrate species evidence supports the hypothesis that carotenoid-based coloration of adults has evolved due to sexual selection. However, in some birds already the nestlings display carotenoid-based coloration. Because the nestling's body plumage is typically moulted before the first reproductive event, sexual selection cannot explain the evolution of these carotenoid-based traits...

Visual signals are crucial for parent-offspring communication, although their functioning has been neglected for nocturnal birds. Here, we investigated parental preference for nestling coloration in nocturnal conditions--a question hitherto unexplored--in a nocturnal raptor, the scops owl (Otus scops). We assessed how parents allocated food during the night in relation to a manipulation of ultr...

While this may be true in many passerines, mainly ground-nesting species with short fledgling periods, we show here that prevalences may be detected as early as 13 days of age in a cavity-nesting passerine. Prevalences and intensities of hematozoa in nestling birds may merit further study, as both parameters are relatively easy to quantify in smears of peripheral blood in bird species such as t...

We used infrared imaging to test whether the energetic cost of begging is observable in changes in body surface temperature (Ts) of young House Sparrow nestlings (Passer domesticus), and whether Ts is affected by nestling rank. Begging had a mixed effect on Ts, increasing it slightly at first, but decreasing it when hungry nestlings begged more vigorously. This mixed effect may result from heat...

-We studied whether the young of the Brown-headed Cowbird are more successful than those of nonparasitic passerines when raised by other species. Eggs and nestlings of seven species were placed in Barn Swal­ low and House Sparrow nests, and the hatching success and nestling survival rates compared. The hatching success was high for all species in both host species' nests. In the Barn Swallow ne...