Nest attendance of the Kentish Plover Charadrius alexandrinus in relation to temperature and incubation stage

ABSTRACT

Nest attendance of Kentish Plovers Charadrius alexandrinus at an undisturbed site increased from approximately 70% in the initial days of incubation to 90–95% after day 10. During the day, nest attendance was negatively associated with ambient temperature, indicating that warm weather allowed parent birds to spend more time off the nest. At night, nest attendance was constant. Our results provide a baseline for nest attendance against which the effects of disturbance can be investigated.

Acknowledgements

We thank Ulf M. Berthelsen and Cloé Balson for assistance in the field and Anita Straume for assistance with processing photos. John Frikke and Kim Fisher are thanked for valuable feedback during the collection of data and Dominic Cimiotti and one anonymous reviewer for very helpful comments to an earlier draft. The fences were installed by the Danish Wadden Sea National Park and the Danish Nature Agency.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Danish Ministry of Environment; the Aage V. Jensen Foundation; the Danish Wadden Sea National Park; the Frands Christian Frantsens Foundation.