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1 March 2014 Time Budgets of Male Calliope Hummingbirds on a Dispersed Lek
Richard L. Hutto
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Abstract

Several authors have suggested that male Calliope Hummingbirds (Selasphorus calliope) perform their dive and shuttle displays on “dispersed leks” where the dramatic aerial displays of several individuals can be seen or heard from a single location. To expand on the limited information available on breeding territorial behavior, I provide detailed time budget data from 3 years of observation of males in a 20-year-old seed-tree cut in Montana. Males spent the vast majority of their time (76%, on average) perched on dead willow branches that extended upward to 4–5 m in height, and an average of 90% of perch time was spent at no more than three perch sites. Most of the rest of the males' time (15%, on average) was spent off territory, where they conducted a good portion of their feeding. About 6% of a male's time was spent performing energetically demanding dive and shuttle displays, which were directed primarily toward females, but also toward other bird species perched within the male's territory. Displays directed toward females were sometimes followed by copulation while she was perched. This is only the second geographic location where male Calliope Hummingbirds are reported to have congregated in what appears to be a dispersed lek. We still know little about how common the clustering of breeding territories is, whether such clustering is limited to early successional habitat, and whether relatively few males obtain most of the copulations in such clusters, as would be expected in a classic lek breeding system.

© Copyright 2014 by the Wilson Ornithological Society
Richard L. Hutto "Time Budgets of Male Calliope Hummingbirds on a Dispersed Lek," The Wilson Journal of Ornithology 126(1), 121-128, (1 March 2014). https://doi.org/10.1676/13-139.1
Received: 28 August 2013; Accepted: 1 November 2013; Published: 1 March 2014
KEYWORDS
Calliope Hummingbird
dispersed lek
disturbance
dive display
shuttle display
wildfire
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