So far my sampling seems to be going well. I have paced out 50m increments along the pathway I am sampling at the Inglewood Bird Sanctuary using an app that tracks the measurement of your steps. I stop every 50 meters, and have 10 different point count stations along the pathway. I stop to observe chickadee behavior/presence of nuthatches at each point. I have stayed for 5 minute increments, which seems to be adequate for the time being. I observe the area around where I am standing to approximately 10 m in each direction. So far, the only issue that I have come across is on one of my visits, I did not observe any nuthatches, just chickadees. However, with this, I was still able to observe the chickadee behavior, and have data to add to my study as I also need to know their behavior in the absence of nuthatches. I have been visiting within the morning hours of the day for each data collection, which seems to be in line with their most active hours. I am hopeful that as I continue, I will be able to see the birds that I am hoping for. As I go further down the pathway and away from the areas that humans frequent, I am seeing lower numbers of both chickadees and nuthatches, so it seems there is a higher volume in some areas that others, which is to be expected. As it is becoming spring, there are greater numbers of species present at the sanctuary, which may also have an impact on my results.
Sounds like a good start! There are always more things going on than expected as it is part of any field research project and gives you additional things to talk about in your discussion.