Differences in a Cage Escape Behaviour between Two Migrating Warblers of Different Stop-Over Strategy

SIMPLE SUMMARY: Cognitive abilities play an important role for migratory birds that are briefly visiting a variety of unfamiliar stop-over habitats. Here, we compared cognitive abilities-linked behaviour (escape from an experimental cage) between two long-distant migrants differing in refuelling strategy during autumn migration, Sedge Warbler (not territorial, searching for locally superabundant food) and Reed Warbler (territorial, foraging on a common prey). We performed a cage experiment on individuals captured in mist-nets. After two minutes of acclimatization in the cage, we remotely opened the cage door and recorded the bird’s reaction. We measured latency that individuals needed to escape from a cage. Sedge warblers were more likely to escape from the cage than Reed Warblers. Sedge warblers generally escaped earlier after the door was opened and were more likely to escape at any given time than Reed Warblers. We interpret the prevalence of non-escaped individuals as a general feature of migratory birds. In contrast to resident species, they are more likely to enter an unfamiliar environment, but they are less explorative. Differences in escape latency between the studied species may be linked to various refuelling strategies in the context of specialist-generalist foraging. Our study provides ecological insight into the cognitive abilities-linked behaviour of wild animals. ABSTRACT: Cognitive abilities play an important role for migratory birds that are briefly visiting a variety of unfamiliar stop-over habitats. Here, we compared cognitive abilities-linked behaviour (escape from an experimental cage) between two long-distant migrants differing in stop-over ecology, Sedge Warbler (Acrocephalus schoenobaenus; not territorial, searching for locally superabundant food) and Reed Warbler (A. scirpaceus; territorial, foraging on a common prey) during the autumn migration. After two minutes of acclimatization in the cage, we remotely opened the cage door and recorded the bird’s reaction. We measured latency that individuals needed to escape from a cage. Sedge warblers were 1.61 times more likely to escape from the cage than Reed Warblers. Sedge warblers generally escaped earlier after the door was opened and were 1.79 times more likely to escape at any given time than Reed Warblers. We interpret the prevalence of non-escaped individuals as a general feature of migratory birds. In contrast to resident species, they are more likely to enter an unfamiliar environment, but they are less explorative. We attributed inter-species differences in escape latency to species-specific autumn stop-over refuelling strategies in the context of specialist-generalist foraging. Our study provides ecological insight into the cognitive abilities-linked behaviour of wild animals.