Prey distribution and foraging preference for tits

Effects of growth stage and tree species composition on breeding bird assemblages of plantation forests

“…Coal Tits will also nest in holes in the ground (Cramp & Perrins 1993), which may make them better suited to breeding in plantations than other species of tit. Also, a foraging study of tits in Japan (Hino et al 2002) found other species of tit to be less ready than Coal Tit to feed in tree species that supported low densities of prey items. If native broadleaved trees support greater densities of insect prey than conifers, the latter may be avoided by other tit species for foraging purposes.…”

Effect of canopy openness on the pressure of predatory arthropods and birds on epigeic insects

“…These results played only a marginal role in our experiments and are in contrast to predation experiments in temperate ecosystems where birds are assumed to be important predators [44][45][46]. The negligible predation effect attributable to birds could reflect behavioral activity of birds, which use leaf damage as clues in their searching effort for the caterpillars, which comprise the most preferred food for their nestlings [47,48]. Furthermore, birds prefer insect food only for the short period of nesting to feed their nestlings [45,46].…”

Tree species preferences of insectivorous birds in a Japanese deciduous forest: the effect of different foraging techniques and seasonal change of food resources

“…Tree species supporting high prey abundance can be expected to be preferred by foraging birds (Hino et al 2002). Prey abundance may explain why A. mono was most preferred by tit species during the first research periods each year.…”