Seasonal shifts in the provisioning behavior of chinstrap penguins, Pygoscelis antarctica.

Whether parents are able to adapt food gathering to rising offspring demands, or if they are controlled largely by extrinsic factors, is important for understanding key limits on fitness. Over seven breeding seasons, we studied the provisioning behavior of chinstrap penguins, Pygoscelis antarctica, at Seal Island, Antarctica, during parents' transition to leave broods of one or two chicks unguarded. By measuring the frequency, duration, and diel timing of foraging trips and the quantity of prey brought to chicks, we examined the extent to which variation in parents' feeding behavior could be attributed to provisioning costs which increase with chick growth.

Precipitation scrubbing of aerial plankton: inferences from bird behavior.

I conducted direct visual observations of aerial insect-eating birds concurrently with remote radar observations of aerial plankton before, during, and after the passage of an intense thunderstorm gust front in east-central Florida. Clear skies and convective conditions predominated in the area prior to local passage of the gust front. Shortly after passage, weather conditions shifted to a stratiform regime, with continuous low cloud cover and intermittent drizzly rain.