At-nest vocalisation behaviour of the Spotted Pardalote

At nest communication in bird species is a potentially counter productive behaviour that threatens both the parent birds and their offspring due to alerting potential threats to their nests. This is especially true in Spotted Pardalotes that nest in excavated nests in the ground. Little is known about Spotted Pardalote vocalisations apart from that they are making them and therefore I wanted to determine the amount of vocalisation happening at the nest and if sex and location to the nest had any effect on vocalisations. I predicted that there would be a vocalisation difference in sex and also that there would be more in the building stage. To observe this behaviour microphones and cameras were set up at the Pardalote nests. I found that Pardalotes were indeed vocalising at their nests and that males had a slightly higher frequency of vocalisations than females, as predicted. There was a larger number of vocalisations during the incubation stage than building stage, potentially due to a higher need for biparental coordination. The most significant finding was that the most vocalisations were occurring within the nest itself rather than outside of the nest. These findings could aid in future studies of in nest vocalisation behaviours in birds as well as potential conservation efforts.