Foraging behaviour of Parus major held in temporary captivity

The data set describes foraging decisions by great tits (Parus major), held in temporary captivity. Data were collected from birds caught from forest at the University of Jyväskylä Research Station, Konnevesi (62°37.7'N 026°17'E), Finland, and were collected during the winter of 2013-2014. Birds were presented with (1) two different coloured plastic cups, or (2) two different artificial prey (almond pieces inside a paper packet and printed with a black and white symbol). One symbol was made bitter-tasting by soaking the almond piece in chloroquine, and learning behaviour was recorded over three trials. Half of the birds in both experiments were presented videos of a demonstrator great tit, to provide social information about prey characteristics and unpalatability. Data were collected to test hypotheses about the evolutionary consequences of social information use by predators as part of a NERC-funded Independent Research Fellowship.