Data from: How to quantify animal activity from radio-frequency identification (RFID) recordings

Automated animal monitoring via radio-frequency identification (RFID)
technology allows efficient and extensive data sampling of individual
activity levels, and is therefore commonly used for ecological research.
However, processing RFID data is still a largely unresolved problem, which
potentially leads to inaccurate estimates for behavioural activity. One of
the major challenges during data processing is to isolate independent
behavioural actions from a set of superfluous, non-independent detections.
As a case study, individual blue tits (Cyanistes caeruleus) were
simultaneously monitored during reproduction with both video recordings
and RFID technology. We demonstrated how RFID data can be processed based
on the time spent in- and outside a nest box. We then validated the number
and timing of nest visits obtained from the processed RFID dataset by
calibration against video recordings. The video observations revealed a
limited overlap between the time spent in- and outside the nest box, with
the least overlap at 23 seconds for both sexes. We then isolated exact
arrival times from redundant RFID registrations by erasing all successive
registrations within 23 seconds after the preceding registration. After
aligning the processed RFID data with the corresponding video recordings,
we observed a high accuracy in three behavioural estimates of parental
care (individual nest visit rates, within-pair alternation and
synchronization of nest visits). We provide a clear guideline for future
studies that aim to implement RFID technology in their research. We argue
that our suggested RFID data processing procedure improves the precision
of behavioural estimates, despite some inevitable drawbacks inherent to
the technology. Our method is useful, not only for other cavity breeding
birds, but for a wide range of (in)vertebrate species that are large
enough to be fitted with a tag and that regularly pass near or through a
fixed antenna.