Observation of Black-capped chickadee’s feeding behaviour were conducted collected 3 times a day at 7:00 am, 12:30 pm and 5:30 pm, over 7 days.
This design is to test if the black-capped chickadees preferred a bird feeder closer to a privet hedge, or farther away. The bird feeders are fixed on green ash trees in my front yard. My hypothesis is that Black-Capped Chickadees will show a preference for the bird feeder closer to the privet Hedge, as it reduces energy to obtain the food and reduces the risk of predation. However, as the bird feeders are attached to the trees and have many branches to fly on, on some occasions the birds are taking shelter on the branches. Rather than flying back to the privet hedge.
Ancillary patterns that have been seen are that without the structured observations 3 times a day, a visual inspection reveals more indentations on the bird feeder closer to the privet hedge rather than the bird feeder that is farther away. This observation suggests a correlation supporting my main hypothesis.