Hi there,
I'm a new user to program MARK and have just begun entering some data relating to nest survival of Northern Flickers Colaptes auratus. I have data from 5 years, with about 80-130 nests each year, and nest visits are made every few days until about 8 days before fledging when we band young. Laying dates, hatching dates and fledging dates are all known for each nest. I have read the recent paper by Dinsmore and am familiar with how to set up the encounter history file, etc...I do have one question regarding this analysis:
1) I would like to get a complete picture of nest survival right from laying through until fledging since young are still confined to the nest cavity until fledging. We can acurrately tell when nests have been depredated after the young have hatched and know almost exactly when fledging occurs so there is no mix up with fledging appearing to be a predation event. I would like to get separate estimates of nest survival for egg and brood stages. Would one do two separate analyses or is there some more complex modelling procedure that I am missing that could incorporate the two stages into one analysis?
Thanks in advance,
Ryan