In our recent paper (here), we demonstrate just how closely a male and female zebra finch move around together. The study, which was led by Chris Tyson (Wageningen University), used small solar-powered radio-tags connected to an automated sensor array, to track the movements of individual birds as they moved around in our main study site at Gap Hills. We know that zebra finches mate with a partner for life, and that they become very behaviourally coordinated over time. However, until we used this new cutting-edge technology we didn’t know just how tightly coordinated their behaviour was. Here we revealed that the distance between partners was usually about 50m, and in reality they were probably closer, because the technology was only able to localise a bird to within about 35m with great accuracy. As illustrated in the photos above, our tracking of the 32 individuals in 16 different pairs, indicated that as the birds moved around throughout the day to water, their nest, and whilst foraging, they did so very closely with their partner. This new study contributes towards our growing collection of studies that have characterised the quality and closeness of the pair-bond in the zebra finch. The pair-bond is particularly tight in this species, and probably helps them to survive and reproduce effectively in the harsh arid zone of Australia in which they live.