Techniques for radio-tagging pheasant chicks

Although chick mortality is high in many precocial bird species, it is particularly difficult to determine the causes of death. We therefore developed techniques for radio-tagging Ring-necked Pheasant Phasianus colchicus chicks within 5 days of hatching, by catching the adult female with her brood. Eleven chicks with wing-tag radios had lower survival than 17 untagged chicks in the same broods, but the survival of 13 chicks with glue-mounted radios was the same as that of 10 untagged controls.