Data from: Winter territory prospecting is associated with life-history stage but not activity in a passerine

Finding a high quality territory is essential for many animals to
reproduce successfully. Despite its importance for fitness, we know little
about the process of territory prospecting in wild birds, and whether
individual traits and behaviours, such as personality, co-vary with
territory prospecting. Here, we use long-term data from a wild, insular
house sparrow Passer domesticus population to test three hypotheses about
territory fidelity and prospecting: (1) House sparrows show high territory
fidelity between years and also during winter. (2) Individuals will
prospect for a breeding territory during their first winter whereas older,
more experienced individuals will keep a territory from previous years and
will, therefore, show no or reduced winter territory prospecting. (3) More
active behavioural types will prospect more than less active behavioural
types. We use data from four winters from automatically, daily recorded
nest-box visits of 188 birds of known age. The number of nest-boxes that
each individual visited within each winter was used as a proxy of winter
territory prospecting. We show that house sparrows visit multiple
nest-boxes during their first winter, whereas older individuals keep
territories year-round and, potentially because of this, indeed show
reduced winter territory prospecting. Activity was not associated with the
number of nest-boxes visited. Further research is needed to investigate
whether time of territory and mate acquisition differs among individuals
and the possible effect on lifetime fitness.