The main issues I had with collecting my data included the weather as it had been very cold (as low as -30°C) and many blizzard conditions. The other issue that arose when I went to collect data in the late afternoon was that there seemed to be no squirrel communication at the park. After some brief research, I came across an article that noted that red squirrels show a peak in activity and communication around 1-2 hours after sunrise in the winter months. With both weather and red squirrel activity peak in mind, I waited until warmer weather came and went to my location around 0900 hours on a warmer day. My sampling strategy of point count sampling worked really well for my project and I will continue to use this method.
The data that I collected wasn’t that surprising to me as there was a lot of disturbance recorded which I had previously predicted as the location I used was near a parking lot and main walking path into the park. The amount of squirrel communication in this area was not surprising to me for a 10-minute interval compared to much higher levels of communication in other areas in the park I had observed in the past.
In the future, I plan to stick with the point count sampling method of disturbances and communication between individuals with a few minor adjustments. The adjustments will include the time of day I will be sampling. I think this modification will allow for more consistency in my approach and overall results.
Nice adjustments!!