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After a few visits to Blanche brook park I was in wonder of what I can possibly discover because our winter won’t let up this year. Every time I visit I seen more snow but it is now April 7th temperature at -3C, I am now seeing spring set in and more signs of life. My visit was still extremely quiet I only seen one person who ventured walking in the snow besides me. As I was walking my focus suddenly went to the sound of crows, I decided to investigate where the sound was coming from. In the nearby trees, I noticed one American crow in one tree that looked at me, and was calling continuously to the nearby tree. When I looked at the nearby tree there, were two more crows sitting next to each other it gave me the feeling that the crow that was calling was giving a warning of me approaching. I always had an interest in this bird because of their keen sense of intelligence. I didn’t even have a chance to get my camera the three crows left.
Due to the interest in the crow I decided I should draw my focus on birds. I marked three points of interest. One being the birch tree at the beginning of the trail in the first picture. Second, the evergreen trees in the second picture and third nearing the end of the trail where there is a McDonalds which has more traffic and human activity. McDonalds is marked on the map in the third picture.
My hypothesis is: Birds will habituate to humans as density rates increase in an area, if there are low persecution rates. If birds feel threatened they will show avoidance behavior, or give warning to others of the same species to move.
One potential response variable in this study is the American crow.
One potential explanatory variable is the increase of human interaction with the park.
Hi there!
Your post is very interesting and informative! Your prediction seems very reasonable because animals do have to adapt to human activity. The predictor and response variable is on track, but what is it about the crows are you measuring? I’m wondering about how you would measure human-crow interactions. Are you looking at how long crows would stay within some area? Also, if you had some food to feed the crows, would they have stayed long? These are just some thoughts and questions that I came up with. There is the possible confoundment where neighborhood crows that are not isolated in the park could be present in the park. Maybe the confoundment is just something that you should list in the experimental error section.