User: | Open Learning Faculty Member:
Because the natural park that I was sampling from is located almost directly next to my place of work, I was able to sample each morning for an hour before heading to work. I sampled from 7-8am each week day starting from January 11th, until February 5th. This meant that I sampled on 20 separate occasions. It was made extremely easy in that it is so close to my work place. With my markers set up for my three testing locations, I spend twenty minutes at each location observing the bird species that I see. I created a tally sheet including any species that have already been identified, with room for any new varieties. Sampling at the location itself went quite well and was relatively easy. Some mornings were quite cold, but it was interesting to observe how different weather conditions seemed to influence the presence of bird species. There were species which I was unable to identify. In those cases, I would take a few pictures of the bird and then identify at a later time. That was challenging at times, thought with the resources I have and the expertise of the staff on site at the natural park, I was able to identify all birds that were observed. The ancillary patterns which I observed did not consistently support my hypothesis. Other considerations such as temperature, precipitation, and hiker presence seemed to contribute to the presence or lack or presence of bird species variety and abundance.
