The Significance of Variations in Body Weight and Wing Length in the Great Tit, Parus Major

Balen, J.H. Van

doi:10.5253/arde.v55.p1

Cited by 56 publications

(55 citation statements)

References 23 publications

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“…Our results confirm this trend, and a similar pattern was found amongst migrant Ring Ouzels trapped in East Sussex during 1976-1989(Leverton 1993. We also found that 2+ year birds were longer winged than 2nd year birds of the same sex, a trend that has been described in other passerines (Stewart 1963, van Balen 1967.…”

Section: Ageing Sexing and Biometricssupporting

confidence: 87%

Catching methods and biometrics of breeding Ring OuzelsTurdus torquatus torquatusin northeast Scotland

Sim¹,

Rebecca

2003

Ringing & Migration

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Section: Ageing Sexing and Biometricssupporting

confidence: 87%

Catching methods and biometrics of breeding Ring OuzelsTurdus torquatus torquatusin northeast Scotland

Sim¹,

Rebecca

2003

Ringing & Migration

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“…A number of plumage characters vary with age in the Great Tit. Van Balen (1967) showed that wing-length increased with age, and Perrins (1979) noted that plumage tends to become brighter. O'Connor (1973) showed that bill-size was fully grown six weeks after hatching so that since the rhamphotheca undergoes continual replacement; there is no a priori expectation of an age-specific component of variation.…”

Section: Age-specific Variationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Pattern and process in the bill morphology of the Great Tit Parus major

Gosler¹

1987

Ibis

129

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This paper attempts validate general patterns of variation observed in bill-size ant ;hape in the genus Parus by a detailed investigation of bill variation within the Great T i t population of Wytham Woods.Bill characters were more variable than other linear characters measured. Bill-length and depth were strongly sexually dimorphic and the differences were greater when body-size was kept constant. T h e size of skeletal components of the bill correlated strongly with body-size but this was not generally the case in the rhamphotheca. Age was not a determinant of bill-size in females hut had a strong effect on bill-length in males in spring, although at no other time.Bill characters were highly repeatable when re-measured within 14 days. Variation in measurements between seasons was significantly greater than expected from observer error. Repeatability was greater between summers than between winter and summer. Seasonal variation within individuals was most marked in bill-length, which was strongly influenced by environmental effects. This was especially clear in winter, so that heritability estimates for bill characters tended to be significantly higher when the offspring were measured in summer than when measured in winter.A study of feeding efficiency in captive birds suggested that the optimal bill-shape should change between seasons in relation to the proportion of invertebrates in the diet. Birds with relatively deep bills were significantly faster at handling beechmast but slower at handling mealworms than relatively thinbilled birds.Winter flock observations showed that when the feeding environment was sufficiently varied, females fed both in a different way to, and significantly higher than, males. Bill-size varied within winters, closely tracking the percentage of beechmast in the diet. It is suggested that dominance plays a key role in determining the niches available to subdominants and that bill-size is both highly adaptive and varies within individuals in response to a varying feeding environment.

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“…4 ) show that chroma deteriorated in birds which survived more than three years. Similar declines in the territory size, breeding performance, wing length and weight of older birds have been attributed to senility (van Balen 1967, Perrins 1979, Hudde 1985, and reproductive senescence in individual female Great Tits has been observed to start at the age of three (Bouwhuis et al . 2009).…”

Section: Factors Affecting Colour Variation In the Fieldmentioning

confidence: 81%

“…To determine whether size influenced colour, we repeated the above analyses on the whole population, within each age and sex group, including wing length as © 2010 British Trust for Ornithology, Bird Study, 57, 315-329 a covariate measure of size (van Balen 1967). It was necessary to separate the ages and sexes in this way since males have brighter plumage and longer wings than females and likewise for adults compared with juveniles.…”

Section: Statistical Analysesmentioning

confidence: 99%