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1 February 2011 Relationships between Breeding Status, Social-Congregation Attendance, and Foraging Distance of Xantus's Murrelets
Christine D. Hamilton, Richard T. Golightly, John Y. Takekawa
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Abstract

At night during the breeding season, Xantus's Murrelets (Synthliboramphus hypoleucus) congregate on the water adjacent to nesting colonies. We examined relationships of attendance at these nocturnal congregations, breeding status, and daytime foraging locations of radio-marked Xantus's Murrelets from Anacapa Island (33 in 2002, 44 in 2003) and Santa Barbara Island (35 in 2002) in the California Channel Islands. Murrelets that spent more nights attending congregations were located closer to the island during the day, so regular attendance at the congregations may have constrained daytime traveling distances to foraging locations. In mid-May 2003 home-range sizes increased while congregation attendance decreased, likely indicating the end of colony attendance and declining availability of prey near Anacapa Island. In both years, incubating murrelets foraged farther from the colony than did nonbreeding murrelets, suggesting that breeding and nonbreeding murrelets use different foraging strategies to meet their energetic requirements.

© 2011 by The Cooper Ornithological Society. All rights reserved. Please direct all requests for permission to photocopy or reproduce article content through the University of California Press's Rights and Permissions website, http://www.ucpressjournals.com/reprintInfo.asp.
Christine D. Hamilton, Richard T. Golightly, and John Y. Takekawa "Relationships between Breeding Status, Social-Congregation Attendance, and Foraging Distance of Xantus's Murrelets," The Condor 113(1), 140-149, (1 February 2011). https://doi.org/10.1525/cond.2011.100040
Received: 28 February 2010; Accepted: 1 October 2010; Published: 1 February 2011
KEYWORDS
California Channel Islands
foraging
radio telemetry
Synthliboramphus hypoleucus
Xantus 's Murrrelet
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