Constant companions: Wild zebra finch pairs display extreme spatial cohesion

Many animals maintain long-term monogamous partnerships, but the extent to which partners interact varies substantially and has implications for the scope of cooperation between pair members. Zebra finches are monogamously paired for life, raising questions as to whether and how they maintain pair cohesion in the absence of having territories and in the absence of long-range signals. While zebra finches are the best studied songbird in captivity, their social and spatial behaviour in the wild is poorly understood. Determining pair cohesion in songbirds to date has almost exclusively been studied only at specific locations, such as nesting or feeding sites, where bird presence can be logged incidentally, without quantifying broader movements. Here, we used automated tracking to continuously monitor the movements of radio-tagged zebra finch pairs during a period with breeding activity. We reveal extremely high pair cohesion with pairs using nearly identical home ranges and maintaining clo..., , , # Data from: Constant companions: Wild zebra finch pairs display extreme spatial cohesion

[https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.n2z34tn4n](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.n2z34tn4n)

## Description of the data and file structure

This data was collected as part of a study on the movements of wild zebra finch pairs. Tracking data (coordinates and timestamps) of radio-tagged zebra finches. Locations of radio tags were estimated using multilateration.

### Files and variables

#### File: zebra_finch_radio_tracking_data_2022-2023.csv

**Description:** CSV file of radio tracking data

##### Variables

* year: Year the data was collected (2022/2023)
* group: Group ID number for each breeding pair (16 pairs total)
* sex: Sex of individual (female/male)
* bird_band: ID number of each individual
* dt: Date time (local time zone: Australia - Broken Hill)
* x: Longitude of the location where they are expected to meet or hang out
* y: Latitude of the location where they are expected to meet or hang out

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