To graze or gorge: consistency and flexibility of individual foraging tactics in tits

An individual's foraging behaviour and time allocated to feeding have direct consequences for its fitness. Despite much research on population-level foraging decisions, few studies have investigated individual differences in fine-scale daily foraging patterns among wild animals.
Here, we explore the consistency and plasticity of feeding tactics of individual great tits (Parus major) and blue tits (Cyanistes caeruleus), using a grid of 65 automated feeding stations in a 385-ha woodland, during three winters. We use a principal component analysis to describe individual variation in six feeding parameters and examine how these differences covary with dominance-linked attributes (species, age and sex), the personality trait ‘exploration behaviour’, distance to territory and local competition intensity.
Analysis of 933 086 feeder visits by 3134 individuals revealed that the majority of variation in the timing of feeding was explained by two principal components. PC1 (‘binge-eating’), accou...