Are age and body condition associated with habitat quality around avian song posts? A test with male Bluethroats at a breeding site in Spain

Abstract

We explored whether habitat characteristics surrounding the song posts that male Bluethroats (Luscinia svecica) use to attract females and defend their territoriesmight be associated withmales’quality, in terms of body condition and age (used here as a proxy of their experience).Datawere collected at Sierra de Béjar (province of Salamanca, centralwestern Spain). Overall, we characterized the habitat and captured 44maleBluethroats at their song posts in 2011 and 2012. The characteristics ofmaleBluethroats’song posts and their surrounding habitat were associated with both the birds’ age and body condition. Second-year Bluethroats were observed to sing in places with higher abundance of spiders as compared to older birds.Moreover,Bluethroats surrounded by a higher proportion of grasslands and with more Opiliones/spiders were found to carry more fuel.