Engaging in the practice of ecology has most definitely increased my appreciation for those in this field. The entire process of generating a hypothesis and reflecting upon it to create a good experimental design to create meaningful relationships between variables was very challenging, especially since variables in nature are difficult to manipulate, and choosing an appropriate study area and sampling method that align with the components of the hypothesis was by far the most difficult aspect of this field I personally found to be. Confounding variables are also a problem that one must consider when creating experimental designs, such as the season (breeding versus non-breeding seasons), day to day weather, presence or absence of other species in question, all of these are very hard to take into account when creating a hypothesis and design. I was very confident in my initial hypothesis and design, but later I realized just how ignorant to small details I was (in terms of behavioral adaptations and characterizing). Ultimately, I found that making a good hypothesis is definitely one of the most important things and I have gained respect to ecologists who are able to observe patterns and create meaningful experiments with appropriate components for such experiments.