First discovery on interspecific parental care of Siberian stonechat (Saxicola maurus) nestlings provided by a male White wagtail (Motacilla alba)

Interspecific parental behavior has been reported across worldwide, especially in Europe and North America, yet relatively little information is available from East Asia. We present the first known interspecific parental care by a white wagtail (Motacilla alba) at a nest of Siberian stonechat (Saxicola maurus), documented by video in the farmland of northwest Yunnan, China. We quantify parental behavior and describe aggressive events between the adult Siberian stonechats and the White wagtail. Despite incurring no obvious fitness benefit, the White wagtail did significantly more feeding attempts than either parent of the Siberian stonechats, but did not show significant difference in sanitation maneuvers compared to each sex of the stonechat parent. Moreover, the three birds’ investment, in terms of food delivery and fecal-sac removal, distributed evenly among the five nestlings at the nest. Although proximate causes of this behavior are unclear, close nest vicinity with host young’s lo..., , , # First discovery on interspecific parental care of Siberian stonechat (Saxicola maurus) nestlings provided by a male White wagtail (Motacilla alba)

[https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.j0zpc86qg](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.j0zpc86qg)

## Description of the data and file structure

The White wagtail and female stonechat attacked each other at the latter's nest (Video S1). The male stonechat also attacked and chased the wagtail when the latter came back to feed stonechat's nestling(Video S2).36 minutes after, the wagtail remained in the area around the nest after feeding the nestlings, and responded with aggressive behavior towards the male stonechat when it approached the nest to feeding its’ offspring (Video S3).
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