User: | Open Learning Faculty Member:
The original study area had to be re-evaluated as area size was noted to be a possible confounding variable, and also because one of the city parks staff completely destroyed one of the proposed study sites in early June. As a result, I decided to take a closer look at the main study area, and in doing so I noticed that there was a gradient in vegetation species richness already present in several areas of the Dufferin Wetlands Park. I decided to divide the main study area into four quadrants to conduct my data collection, and before collecting bird species data, I surveyed each quadrant and counted the number of vegetation species present. Bird species data was collected from June 5-12, 2021 using the point counts sampling method.
The most pronounced difficulty in data collection that I noticed was the initial identifications of the bird species in the area. This was easily the most time-consuming task as some birds were extremely active and harder to identify than others. Once identifications were complete, I did not find the actual data collection replicates to be a difficult task, and found it to be relatively straight-forward.
At this point in time, I plan to make a few small changes but will ultimately stick to using this technique to collect data for my experiment. To explain, I will be adding a control site to the data collection, which will be a nearby parking lot. I will also attempt to control for the time of day by sampling data at the same times for each replicate, and also plan to standardize the point count sampling times for each area to 5 minutes. Cumulatively, I feel that these changes will help to produce more consistent data.
Sounds like your plans are coming together. I agree, standardized time of day and point count timing are key for bird surveys. I’m still not sure about what you hope to gain from including a parking lot?