Today was a beautiful day, very sunny and hot! We slept in
until breakfast and did the first half of our bird counts after we ate. Our
first two counts were done without Geovani or Dr. Brown, we are getting much
better at identifying species! It has been concluded that the three of us have
officially "stepped into the dark side", according to Debbie our host. We find
ourselves always noticing birds wherever we go, even during our free-time, rather
than relaxing and napping we sit on the porch and look for new bird species.
Today, we were very excited to discover three new species of hummingbirds that
we had not seen before. It is raining now and we are analyzing data before we
go back into the field to finish our bird counts for the day. Tomorrow we will be welly wanging!!
Adriane Smith: May 2008 Archives
Last night began the first tropical storm of the season, so all day today was rainy and very foggy. We did not see as many species of birds as usual. We did, however see a new species of hummingbird which we have yet to identify. We currently have counted 836 birds (of 63 total species) since the first day of our bird counts. We began our data analysis and density calculations for each species today. The weather finally cleared this afternoon, and we hope for a good day tomorrow, we get to sleep in till 6:30!!
- The Bird crew!
From left, Kat Miller, Katherine Biernat, and Adriane Smith. Photo by Jim Varnum
Today we went to the Cedar Ridge Preserve with Dr. Brown in order to get first hand experience sighting and identifying bird species. We were even fortunate enough to see a Painted Bunting and Indigo Bunting as well as some other bird species. In class we wrote our finalized project protocol and equipment list. We met with the mapping group and determined that an x-y coordinate system would be used for our labeled observation points. We also decided what information we'd like them to record for each site. We also typed up our data sheets.
- The bird group
