Blog Post 6: Data Collection

I had been collecting data March 26 to March 28 on the number of ducks in the three locations (Land, Shallow water, Deep water) and found there to be somewhat more ducks in the deep water. I had collected a total of 5 samples. Sample 2 and 3 were on the same day at different times. Sample 4 and 5 were also on the same day at different times. During these sampling periods, I noticed something important: the ducks appear to change preference throughout the day. This data is simplified and shown in Table 1 below. Therefore,  I had collected 4 more days of data at three points in time during the week of April 2nd. This data has yet to be analyzed – but this had changed my initial hypothesis. I had originally hypothesized that the ducks prefer to be in the deep water at all times but I hypothesize that they prefer the shallow water during certain light levels.

Table 1. The average number of ducks seen in each location throughout the day for each sampling trial. Each trial shows the mean number of ducks in the location during the sampling hour. The Average number is shown in the last row.