Survival and habitat use by fledgling northern flickers in a fragmented forest landscape

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Abstract
The post‐fledging dependency period of birds is often characterized by high juvenile mortality, but fledglings in specific habitats may have increased survivorship. We describe habitat use by fledgling northern flickers (Colaptes auratus) in relation to the availability of patchy forest and prairie habitat in central British Columbia, Canada. We used radiotelemetry to monitor survival of fledglings according to their use of habitats during the dependency period. The fledglings occupied habitats with a higher density of trees than either random locations or nest sites and they switched from forested areas to more open grasslands after 7–10 days post‐fledging. Some moved >1 km from the nest within 4 days post‐fledging. Fledglings from nests in small tree clusters with little forest cover within 250 m moved farther from their nest within the first 4 days post‐fledging than fledglings from nests in larger forest patches. Fledgling survival was positively correlated with the amount of canopy cover and negatively correlated with the amount of forest cover at the larger landscape scale. Young flickers moved among habitat types, which may occur as a result of trade‐offs between predation risk and food abundance between habitats. We conclude that fledgling flickers at younger ages used dense forested areas and grassland habitat and forest at older ages to maximize survival and to access food sources. Maintaining patches of dense cover and the amount of forest cover on less than 35% of the landscape may improve fledgling survival of flickers. © 2014 The Wildlife Society.

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