Migratory animals face severe time and energy constraints during their annual cycle. These constraints may be exacerbated in young animals by conditions experienced during development that can affect both phenotype and phenology. For young migratory songbirds, the period between fledging and autumn migration, the post‐fledging period, is believed to represent a time of intense selective pressure. However, there has yet to be a study that has assessed post‐fledging survival for the entirety of the post‐fledging period, probably due to the challenge of following juveniles as they move broadly across the landscape (tens to hundreds of kilometres). To overcome this challenge, we used an automated radiotelemetry array spanning 60 000 km² in southern Ontario, Canada, and miniature digital radiotelemetry tags to track 216 juvenile Barn Swallows Hirundo rustica continuously from fledging to migration. We hypothesized that young that fledged in better condition and earlier in the breeding season would have higher survival relative to birds fledging in poorer condition, because they have more energy to deal with resource constraints, and that early‐fledging birds would depart on migration earlier than late‐fledging birds because there is probably a fixed period of time required post‐fledging to prepare for migration. We found that average cumulative apparent survival was 42% and that condition in the nest was a strong positive predictor of post‐fledging apparent survival. We also found that birds that fledged earlier in the season departed on migration earlier in the autumn relative to late‐fledging birds. Contrary to our prediction, average apparent survival was equal for early‐ and late‐fledging birds. Our results suggest that factors during development that promote better nestling condition are critical for predicting future apparent survival prior to migration. Differences in annual apparent survival between early‐ and late‐fledging songbirds, as commonly observed, may be driven by events occurring at later stages of the annual cycle.

Determining migratory connectivity within and among diverse taxa is crucial to their conservation. Insect migrations involve millions of individuals and are often spectacular. However, in general, virtually nothing is known about their structure. With anthropogenically induced global change, we risk losing most of these migrations before they are even described. We used stable hydrogen isotope (δ²H) measurements of wings of seven species of butterflies (Libytheana carinenta, Danaus gilippus, Phoebis sennae, Asterocampa leilia, Euptoieta claudia, Euptoieta hegesia, and Zerene cesonia) salvaged as roadkill when migrating in fall through a narrow bottleneck in northeast Mexico. These data were used to depict the probabilistic origins in North America of six species, excluding the largely local E. hegesia. We determined evidence for long-distance migration in four species (L. carinenta, E. claudia, D. glippus, Z. cesonia) and present evidence for panmixia (Z. cesonia), chain (Libytheana carinenta), and leapfrog (Danaus gilippus) migrations in three species. Our investigation underlines the utility of the stable isotope approach to quickly establish migratory origins and connectivity in butterflies and other insect taxa, especially if they can be sampled at migratory bottlenecks. We make the case for a concerted effort to atlas butterfly migrations using the stable isotope approach.

Radio frequency identification (RFID) provides a simple and inexpensive approach for examining the movements of tagged animals, which can provide information on species behavior and ecology, such as habitat/resource use and social interactions. In addition, tracking animal movements is appealing to naturalists, citizen scientists, and the general public and thus represents a tool for public engagement in science and science education. Although a useful tool, the large amount of data collected usingRFIDmay quickly become overwhelming. Here, we present an R package (feedr) we have developed for loading, transforming, and visualizing time‐stamped, georeferenced data, such asRFIDdata collected from static logger stations. Using our package, data can be transformed from rawRFIDdata to visits, presence (regular detections by a logger over time), movements between loggers, displacements, and activity patterns. In addition, we provide several conversion functions to allow users to format data for use in functions from other complementary R packages. Data can also be visualized through static or interactive maps or as animations over time. To increase accessibility, data can be transformed and visualized either through R directly, or through the companion site:http://animalnexus.ca, an online, user‐friendly, R‐based Shiny Web application. This system can be used by professional and citizen scientists alike to view and study animal movements. We have designed this package to be flexible and to be able to handle data collected from other stationary sources (e.g., hair traps, static very high frequency (VHF) telemetry loggers, observations of marked individuals in colonies or staging sites), and we hope this framework will become a meeting point for science, education, and community awareness of the movements of animals. We aim to inspire citizen engagement while simultaneously enabling robust scientific analysis.

Determining the source areas of harvested individuals is important for effective conservation and management of migratory game birds. Banding has provided much information about source areas, but obtaining samples of marked individuals representative of all potential breeding areas is difficult for most species. To add to previous knowledge of harvest derivation based on banding data and to assist with regulatory decisions, we used stable hydrogen isotope (δ²H) techniques to estimate natal and molt source areas of Blue‐winged Teal (Spatula discors) harvested in southern Canada in 2014 and 2017. We found that most birds harvested in southern Saskatchewan, southern Manitoba, northern Ontario, and southern Ontario likely originated in the prairie and boreal plains regions of Canada and the United States, which is the core production area for the species. Based on feather δ²H values, some birds harvested in Ontario may have also originated in Ontario. Our results differ from those of a long‐term analysis of band recovery data that revealed that most Blue‐winged Teal harvested in Ontario originated in the eastern part of the province and areas along the lower Great Lakes and southwestern Quebec. We found that nearly all birds harvested in Ontario in our study likely originated from areas north and west of the province. Together, banding and stable isotopes likely provide the best information available on source areas of harvested birds for regulatory decision making.