User: | Open Learning Faculty Member:
The area that I have chosen to observe is a nearby city park called The Bill Reid Millennium Amphitheatre. The area of the park is approximately 200m x 1000m. The landscape and vegetation is nearly flat with some hills, covered mainly with grass and strategically placed trees that line the path ways and act as a barrier from the busy roads that surround the park on two of its four sides. A few single trees are placed throughout the grass field at various points. It also contains a ravine that runs between the main path of the park and the sidewalk that runs alongside Highway 15, and a pond at the far south side of the park beside a quiet road. The initial visit was done on 15 November 2020 from approximately 6:15-6:50am. It was dark when I first arrived and the sunrise had just begun when I was leaving my initial observations. I believe the temperature was approximately 0-3 degrees Celsius and it was cloudy with various breaks that revealed the clear sky. There was no precipitation. It was about a month before the official beginning of winter so temperatures have been dropping and will continue to drop and the ecosystem has been receiving large amounts of precipitation. Because i will be observing and conducting my study in the winter, there will likely be no growth and little activity in the ecosystem but I would be interested in learning about how the ecosystem adapts to survive the harsh conditions of winter and what patterns might be seen during this season.
Some questions I might consider for my final project include:
How do non migrating chickadee birds acquire energy and choose to expend it in preparation for the winter months?
How do the ducks in this ecosystem behave in preparation for migrating south for the winter? Or, will they?
How do ducks behave socially in the winter months? Are they competitive or cooperative? Why might this be the case?
How does the vegetation adapt or behave to make it through the cold temperatures of the winter?
Great field journal entry, looks very detailed. Sounds like a good choice of site for your study. I like that you are thinking of questions related to vegetation and birds, between these topics you should be able to find a question to narrow in on. As you work through the next few posts and you will want to think through how you would go about testing each question to narrow down to one that works.