3 Results
Of the 307 individuals that left their nest, 46 (15%) survived to the
end of the brood-rearing stage in the following year. Our survival model
estimated that biweekly survival was lowest in the summer post-fledging
season (0.844; 0.809 – 0.878), and substantially higher in autumn
(0.936; 0.916 – 0.953), snow-free winter (0.970; 0.954 – 0.981), and
the following spring (0.945; 0.921 – 0.964; Fig. 1) seasons. Accounting
for the different duration of the seasons, the overall survival was
lowest for the summer post-fledging season despite its short duration
(0.508), with the autumn dispersal seasons (0.673) having marginally
lower survival than mild snow-free winters (0.734) and the following
springs (0.712; Table 1).