Date: Mar 17, 2023
Temperature: around -10°C, cloudy
Time: 13:30-2:15
Location: Kings park (Winnipeg, Manitoba)
I detected some bird activities during this visit. However, the presence of birds appeared in the end of March in a few years ago in my memory. As we know, the global climate change impacts the ecosystem in different aspects. So I searched for the average temperature in Winnipeg for March 2013. the temperature from March 16th to March 31st varied from -24°C to 3°C. I planned to study how the temperature change influence the arrival time in migratory birds.
Date: Mar 18, 2023
Temperature: around -5°C, cloudy
Time: 13:00-14:45
Location: Kings park (Winnipeg, Manitoba)
I prepared a telescope and a notebook this time. And I have chose 3 similar forests for preventing too much variables.
Site 1: the forest around the chinese Pagoda (North)
Site 2: the forest besides the lake (middle)
Site 3: the forest around the dog park (south)
Each site apart around 500m-1km, and I only recorded the birds I can see (both fly and motionless). i recorded the distinguishing features for detected birds, and find the specific species when back to home. And for each site, I observed for 20 mins, then observed again for 10 mins after finishing the first round. My original study organism is the migratory birds. However, I found more birds than yesterday, which includes non-migratory birds. So I decided to add one more study goal into my observation: the relationship between the daily temperature and the amounts of bird activity.
Hypothesis: the global climate change cause the early arrival time of migratory birds to their habitat. And the daily temperature change can influence the amount of bird activities.
Response variable: the presence of migratory birds, and the amount of birds observed in one day. Which are the categorical variables.
Predictor variable: the temperature change (annual and daily), which are the continuous variables
That sounds like a lot of fun! The effect of daily temperature on the arrival of migratory birds seems like a very testable hypothesis. You’ve also got replication in space with several sites, and in time with multiple observations. I wonder if the local birds can act as a control, with bird activity in general, and the arrival of migratory birds being dependant variables?