The relationship between daily routines of singing and foraging: an experiment on captive Great Tits Parus major

Unpaired, singing, male Great Tits Parus major kept in aviaries were subjected to two different daily regimes of foraging profitability. Birds learnt to adjust their foraging patterns to avoid feeding at periods of low foraging profitability. Once learnt, this had no effect on their singing regimes, indicating no direct causal link between the organization of daily regimes of singing and foraging. When first faced with low foraging profitability early in the morning, birds reduced morning song levels but these returned to normal, although no higher than normal, as they learnt to anticipate the daily routine. This suggests that unpredictable periods of low foraging profitability cause reduced singing activity but predictable time of day effects do not. Birds did not spend all their non‐foraging time singing and appeared to have ‘free time’.