Conducting a field research project has given me a much deeper appreciation for challenges faced by ecological researchers studying patterns in nature as much of it is hard to manipulate and rather has to be inferred through time intensive data collection. As for my project, I knew that given my schedule I would need to choose a location that was close to home and I was fortunate to have a large enough backyard home to wide range of birds. This made data collection relatively smooth, and I didn’t make any changes to my initial experiment design. Through the process of data collection, analysis and report writing, it stimulated my interest in the field of ecology further and I made me think about additional field projects that would be interesting to pursue. For example, as I observed the birds visiting my fruit trees, I began to realize that it may be the case that the northeast corner trees (which had more birds visit during my project) support a great diversity and abundance of birds due to their size alone, rather than some other characteristic such as the type of fruit they bear. Some of the larger bird species such as the Sulfur-crested cockatoo may feel more comfortable in a larger, sturdier tree rather than prefer peaches or pears over plums. Overall, I really enjoyed the experience and learned valuable lessons about the amount of planning and time it takes to conduct rigorous, reliable and comprehensive ecological research.