I really enjoyed this project, especially planning and conducting the observations. Due to unforeseen circumstances I was and still on the move travelling from one country to another and I was lucky enough to reside in a perfect spot in Phuket that had all the components to perform necessary observations for my field experiment. In addition, I had a chance to enjoy unforgettable subequatorial climate and environment. From the very start to the end I haven’t faced any major challenges with the design, everything went pretty straightforward. My observations always went smoothly and I was able to confirm my hypothesis. In just nearly two weeks of observations I learned a lot about behavior of herons that I was observing. I had to spend more time on tables and graphs than I planned to, however it wasn’t a big of an issue.
Before conducting this project I had basic understanding of what Ecology is and after deep diving into it now I can imagine how much effort, time and resources are spent to describe processes that are happening in the environment around us. Additionally, from literature that I used for my project I learned more about the nature of tides, what is affecting them and about the behavior of various species of herons. Lastly, I learned and developed my skills in how to design a field experiment from scratch including developing of the hypothesis, designing a study, initiating observations, collecting data, creating tables and graphs, and annotated bibliography, and final report.
Hi Alexey
interesting study and I wish I was on the beach looking at birds
looking at your other data, don’t forget to think a bit about how low count numbers might be influencing your conclusions – so in the Discussion you can talk about how not having a lot of data could be strengthened by broadening the study
this challenge is often seen for example with studies that look at birds of prey – where only one or two animals are ‘found’. Just a note about Discussion
Hi Nancy,
Thank you for your feedback, I already have some ideas about broadening the study, I will try to indicate them in the final report. By the way, while my main duty was to observe the herons in the intertidal area, every morning I used to wake up to the calling of a red-backed sea eaglet that was waiting for his parents to bring him some food. Their nest was ~100-150m away and it was clearly visible with naked eye. Truly incredible experience!