Parental influence upon the provisioning schedules of nestling Short‐tailed Shearwaters Puffinus tenuirostris

• Published in: Journal of Avian Biology
• Main Authors: Bradley, J. S., Cox, J. M., Nicholson, L. W., Wooller, R. D., Hamer, K. C., Hill, J. K.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Wiley 2000
• Subjects: Puffinus tenuirostris
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1034/j.1600-048x.2000.310412.x; https://api.wiley.com/onlinelibrary/tdm/v1/articles/10.1034%2Fj.1600-048X.2000.310412.x; https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1034/j.1600-048X.2000.310412.x

The single young of shearwaters grows slowly and is fed at long, often highly variable, intervals. We monitored the growth patterns of nestling Short‐tailed Shearwaters Puffinus tenuirostris exchanged between nests in order to assess whether the patterns of parental visits or the demands of their young determined the rate of food provisioning in this species. These cross‐fostering trials indicate a strong parental influence upon the rate of food delivery, but did not exclude the possibility of a minor influence from chicks.