Dunnock the female. Males try to ensure their paternity by pecking at the cloaca of the female to stimulate ejection of rival males' sperm. Dunnocks take just one-tenth of a second to copulate and can mate more than 100 times a day. Males provide parental care in proportion to their mating success, so two males and a female can commonly be seen provisioning nestlings at one nest. Other mating systems also exist within dunnock populations, depending on the ratio of male to females and the overlap of territories. When only one female and one male territory overlap, monogamy is preferred. Sometimes,
Laughing Bird Caye in the central lagoon of the Belize Barrier Reef. Laughing Bird Caye is a long island that sits on an unusually long narrow ridge of reef called a faro. A faro is an angular atoll on a continental shelf, which is also called a shelf atoll. Similar to other atolls, a faro has a steep drop off and has a central lagoon enclosed in the reef. This Laughing Bird Faro is separated from the mainland and the barrier reef by deep channels all around the faro. Laughing Bird Caye is a unique island structure in which its uniqueness adds to