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Ornithological Science
Abstract
Abstract
We summarize records of courtship and offspring feeding for 16 resident passerine birds based on long-term observations made by amateur ornithologists in Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan. Courtship feeding was detected in nine passerine species, including two that had not been previously reported to perform this behavior in Japan. Fledgling feeding and food transport to nests were detected in almost all of the species. Courtship feeding was detected mainly in early spring, but in some species it also occurred in winter. We discuss briefly the implications of the results, as well as possible biases and limitations of citizen-based research.
We greatly thank the members of the Kanagawa branch of the Wild Bird Society of Japan for their great efforts in collecting and organizing their observations. We are grateful to S. Suzuki for permitting the use of additional unpublished data, particularly to T. Ishii for preparing the data for our analysis. We thank Dr. James Worth and Mark Brazil for revising our English writing. We are grateful to Dr. Taku Mizuta and three anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments on an early version of the manuscript. During the study, the first author was partially supported by Research Fellowships of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science for Young Scientists (Grant Number 2610007).
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