Back to back intervals with no time "gaps"

[Rebekah Ry]

Hello,

I had a question about setting up data as to estimate apparent survival for breeding verse non-breeding seasons. I performed resights on banded birds once every two weeks for an entire year (no gap in my resight efforts), yet I want to assess if apparent survival differs during the breeding season (here deemed as March - August) and non-breeding season (Sept - February). Because I technically do not have any 'gaps' between seasons (the seasons butt-up right next to each other), will my estimates be reliable? Or should I change my time intervals (to say breeding as March-June and non-breeding as Sept - Dec) so that there is a 'gap' between the seasons I am making estimates for?

I have been advised that I need a gap in my data for these estimations, but I wanted to check if this was true. I can easily go back and collapse my data to where I am "tossing" my resights from certain months to make this gap (a true "distinction" between seasons), but I don't know if this is necessary?

Any advice would be wonderful. I have already run my CJS models with this "continuous" resight data, but I want to make sure I'm not doing something horribly wrong...

Thank you so much for your time,
Rebekah