Nesting Success Of Great Tit Nesting In Nest-boxes And The Use Of Nest-boxes

This study was conducted between February and August, 2004, on approximately 90ha in Zuojia natural protective reserve in Jilin province. The aim of this study is to attract the secondary cavity-nesting bird with nest-boxes.3 of all 4 plots are experiment plots, one is control. I placed 113 nest-boxes in mountainous secondary forest. Three species of secondary cavity-nesting bird and a species of animal used nest-boxes, they are Great Tit (Parus major ), Eurasian Nuthatch (Sitta europaea ), Daurian Redstart ( Phoenicurus auroreus )and Siberian Chipmunk (Eutamias sibiricus). 90 of 113 nest-boxes are used, the utilization percentage is 79.6 %. Nesting success of Great Tit nests in nest-boxes was studied, the result showed: the clutch sizes varied from 6 to 14, mean clutch sizes are 10.04±1.950 eggs and it's percentage is the biggest., the most contribution to population are from clutch of 12 eggs. There are 21 nests failed to reproductive, the main reason are destroyed by man and preyed by Siberian Chipmunk. The Great Tit population's breeding period is 119 days, from the date of the first egg laid (15 Feb) to the date of the final nestling fledged (11 Aug).the number of nests laid eggs was strongly bimodal distribution within breeding period, the T-test showed: clutch size, incubation period, hatching period and nestling period existed extremly differences (p<0.01), productivity of the Great Tit population decreased significantly between the bimodal periods. The comparison of the reproductive characteristics of the Great Tit nested in nest-boxes and natural cavities was studied in this paper, the nesting success of nest-boxes is far better than natural cavities. The most important factor of nest-site selection of the Great Tit is the number of trees within a 10-m radius half circular plot towards the orientation of the entrance of the nest-boxes centered on nest tree, the number of trees within a 10-m radius circular plot centered on nest tree and the average height of the shrub in this range are very important. The average height of shrub is the most important factor to nesting success.