Do Pied Flycatcher Males Adopt Broods of Widow Females?

Abstract

Pied flycatcher males were removed from 14 territories on the day when females laid their first egg to see if other males would adopt the brood. In most cases males avoided joining females that had already begun egg-laying. Only in three nests did new males arrive and aided the females in raising the young. Replacement males joined widowed females in the beginning of the nesting cycle and, therefore, may have sired some of the young in the brood they helped to raise.