For my research project I have planned to visit the chosen area two tides a day – during low and high tide to calculate the quantity of individuals of herons.
At first I thought that visiting the place two times per day was not going to be challenging. However I’ve soon realized that not always full low and full high tide are happening during day (approximately from 6am to 6pm) time when there is enough light to make observations. Instead I visited the spot at the best possible hours when low and high tides are in its peak.
In addition, there were several distractions that made observations somewhat challenging:
- Heavy rain. Sometimes the rain was so intense that even though it is always warm in Phuket I stayed at home to wait for better time to go the location for observations
- Locals collecting marine animals for their own needs during low tide. I’ve counted 3 times when locals occupied space where herons usually had been grazing.
- Local dogs sometimes chased herons or were just running around distracting herons
Also I would like to mention that binoculars would be a huge advantage for such kind of observations as during low tide water retreated for at least 100-150 meters from the shore.
For my observations I used Tideschart app to track times of low and high tides and several weather apps to sea if weather has any effect on the activity of herons.
The data I collected wasn’t very surprising so I will continue to make observations using the same method and techniques.
Hi Alex,
I’m very interested in this study! I am also conducting a bird study because I love birds and am interested in how their habitat influences their behaviour and life history events. I think you have a good prediction for this study as I would also predict low tide would have higher heron activity. This is a prediction that is easy to falsify and the variables are easily measured in the field, the challenging part is probably timing your field visits according to the tide. It’s also challenging to watch bird activity in public areas where there are many constraints that contribute to the study outcomes.
I wonder what sampling method you decided to go with for this study. It seems as though you are conducting observations from one sample point and visiting the same point twice a day. How was this point selected? Do you also have a distance around the point to use as a quadrat or are you just including all individuals observed during field visits and recording the distance they are from the point as a separate variable? I think you chose easily measurable variables and did a great job indicating the confounding variables that may be impacting your results. Great study idea!