Time budget and 24-h temporal rest–activity patterns of captive red deer hinds

Abstract

The time budget and rest–activity patterns of three radio-collared red deer hinds were studied in a 1-ha enclosure for 5 consecutive days in winter, spring and summer 2001. Activity counts recorded over 5-min intervals by the storage-telemetry-system ETHOSYS® were used to separate active from resting sampling intervals based on concurrently visual observations during daylight hours. The mean duration of activity per day peaked at 13h in winter and declined to about 10h in summer. Season did not affect time budgets during the 1–3h before or the 2h around sunrise, but activity during the 1–3h after sunrise was highest in winter and the lowest in summer. Hinds were also more active in winter than in summer, both 1–3h before and 1–3h after sunset. The median number of active bouts per day was 7 in winter, 9 in spring and 12.5 in summer. Active bouts gradually decreased in length from winter to spring, and from spring to summer. Resting bouts were longer in winter than in spring and summer. In winter, the duration of first active bouts which included the time of sunrise was longer than those of all other bouts, while the first three resting bouts were shorter than the following ones. In spring and summer, a similar diurnal pattern in bout length distribution was also observed for active bouts, but not for resting bouts. Synchrony of behaviour among hinds at the start of active or resting bouts did not differ around sunrise or sunset or throughout the rest of the day. These patterns represent basic responses to endogenous and environmental stimuli, and provide a useful background against which the behaviour of wild red deer can be compared.