Video Surveillance of Nesting Birds

Declining bird populations, especially those that breed in North American grasslands, have stimulated extensive research on factors that affect nest failure and reduced reproductive success. Until now, this research has been hampered by the difficulties inherent in observing nest activities. Video Surveillance of Nesting Birds highlights the use of miniature video cameras and recording equipment yielding new important and some unanticipated insights into breeding bird biology, including previously undocumented observations of hatching, incubation, fledging, diurnal and nocturnal activity patterns, predator identification, predator-prey interactions, and cause-specific rates of nest loss. This seminal contribution to bird reproductive biology uses tools capable of generating astonishing results with the potential for fresh insights into bird conservation, management, and theory.

Christine A. Ribic is Associate Professor of Wildlife Ecology at the University of Wisconsin, Unit Leader, US Geological Survey, Wisconsin Cooperative Wildlife Research Unit.
Frank R. Thompson, III is a Research Wildlife Biologist in the Sustainable Management of Central Hardwood Ecosystems and Landscapes Unit of the Northern Research Station of the USDA at the University of Missouri-Columbia

Pamela A. Pietz is a Research Wildlife Biologist in the Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center of the USGS in Jamestown, North Dakota.

Preface
Foreword

Part 1. Synthesis/Overview
Chapter 1: Knowledge gained from video-monitoring grassland passerine nests
Pamela J. Pietz, Diane A. Granfors and Christine A. Ribic

Chapter 2: Conservation implications when the nest predators are known
Frank R. Thompson, III and Christine A. Ribic

Chapter 3: Gamebirds and nest cameras: present and future
Susan N. Ellis-Felege and John P. Carroll

Part 2: Breeding Behavior
Chapter 4: Hatching and fledging information from grassland passerine nests
Pamela J. Pietz, Diane A. Granfors and Todd A. Grant

Chapter 5: Attendance patterns and survival of Western Meadowlark nests
Larkin A. Powell, Matthew D. Giovanni, Scott Groepper, Mitchell L. Reineke and Walter H. Schacht

Chapter 6: Sprague's Pipit incubation behavior
Stephen K. Davis and Teslin G. Holmes

Chapter 7: Patterns of incubation behavior in Northern Bobwhites
Jonathan S. Burnam, Gretchen Turner, Susan N. Ellis-Felege, William E. Palmer, D. Clay Sisson and John P. Carroll

Chapter 8: The influence of weather on shorebird incubation
Paul A. Smith, Sarah A. Dauncey, H. Grant Gilchrist and Mark R. Forbes

Chapter 9: Nocturnal activity of nesting shrubland and grassland passerines
Christy M. Slay, Kevin S. Ellison, Christine A. Ribic, Kimberly G. Smith and Carolyn M. Schmitz

Part 3: Behavioral Responses to Predation/Predator Identification
Chapter 10: Bird productivity and nest predation in agricultural grasslands
Christine A. Ribic, Michael J. Guzy, Travis J. Anderson, David W. Sample and Jamie L. Nack

Chapter 11: Predator identity can explain nest predation patterns
Jennifer L. Reidy and Frank Thompson, III

Chapter 12: Nest defense: grassland bird responses to snakes
Kevin Ellison and Christine A. Ribic

Chapter 13: Partial depredations on Northern Bobwhite nests
Susan N. Ellis-Felege, Anne Miller, Jonathan S. Burnam, Shane D. Wellendorf, D. Clay Sisson, William E. Palmer and John P. Carroll

Chapter 14: Identification of Spragues's Pipit nest predators
Stephen K. Davis, Stephanie L. Jones, Kimberly M. Dohms and Teslin G. Holmes

Part 4: Technology
Chapter 15: Development of camera technology for monitoring nests
W. Andrew Cox, M. Shane Pruett, Thomas J. Benson, Scott J. Chiavacci and Frank R. Thompson III