Fig. 5

Seasonal pattern and annual variation in prey ingestion rates of spoonbills foraging in the Wadden Sea. Results are based on 8 adult females that were tracked during the period 2016–2019 (for more details on the available data, see Table S3). The trackers collected 1.6 s acceleration data samples along with GPS coordinates at 10 min intervals. For training and applying the RF model, the data were cut into 0.4 s segments. a The line reflects the population-level estimates from the mixed-effect model fitting a quadratic function of day of the year while accounting for random individual variation in the intercept and linear and quadratic effect of day of the year (based on the 3^rd ranked model “season” in Table 2). b Means and estimated seasonal trends are plotted separately for each year (based on the best-supported model “season * year” in Table 2). Means and 95% confidence intervals were calculated from the estimates of prey ingestion rates (i.e., proportion of foraging time spent ingesting prey) per bird per year per day of the year on the log scale and then back-transformed. For readability, 95% confidence intervals are only shown in panel a