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During my initial field visit to Surrey Bend Regional Park I noticed that there appeared to be more bird activity (pattern) within the Wetland Complex area then in the Entrance Area. This was despite the fact that both of these locations appear superficially similar in that they are dominated primarily by grass species, and represent open landscapes. I am interested in examining how the composition of major habitat features influences bird species presence, therefore the organism I have chosen to study is the bird species present within these two habitats.
The site gradient begins at the parking lot and large mowed fields at the south end of the Entrance Area and runs approximately 400m to the north through the site. At this point it transitions into the Wetland Complex. I developed four observation locations along the gradient, two in the Entrance Area and two in the Wetland Complex. I used a systematic sampling strategy to randomly select the first observation point in each habitat along the trail that runs through them (acting as a transect). This was accomplished by using a random number generator to generate a point between 0m and 400m. The second observation point was placed 200m away from the first along the trail as this is the minimum distance required for independence between bird survey sites as outlined by the Resource Inventory Committee Standards. The sampling unit at each observation location is a point count survey where all birds seen and heard within a 50m radius of the observation point are recorded during a 5-minute period.
After setting up these observation sites I completed my first round of official observations. The results of one observation in each habitat site can be seen in the data sheets below.
During point county survey bird names are recorded in standardized acronyms to accommodate quick data recording, a list of acronyms can be found here: https://www.birdpop.org/docs/misc/Alpha_codes_eng.pdf
Based on these more formal observations, my hypothesis is that grass species composition, and habitat features present within a site will influence bird species presence.
I predict that there will be a higher diversity of bird species present within the Wetland Complex where there are less anthropogenic influences. In addition, I predict that the bird species found within the Entrance Area will contain more generalist species whereas the bird species identified in the Wetland Complex will contain more specialist species.
The response variable in this observational study will be the presence/absence of bird species (categorical variable) present within each habitat.
The potential explanatory variables will include the percent cover (continuous variable) of the following coarse scale habitat features:
- Agricultural Grass Mix
- Wetland Grass Mix
- Gravel/Mowed Grass (i.e.: cleared land)
- Buildings
- Open Water
- Shrubs/Young Forest
