Collect Data Tutorial
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Welcome!
Help us by collecting data to answer these questions:
- When do focal species arrive at the feeder?
- How does this vary from day to day?
- Does the timing of food affect when birds arrive?
Please read the tutorial before you start.
TUTORIALYou must be logged in to participate
LOG INClick the birds as they arrive
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Panama Live Field Guide
Use this guide to help you identify the 6 focal species that we will be collecting data on for this investigation.
1. Clay-colored Thrush
The Clay-colored Thrush is a common brown-colored bird and often easily observed. It’s found in lightly wooded areas, often in close proximity to people. Its range just reaches the United States, in southernmost Texas, but elsewhere it ranges south through eastern Mexico and over much of Middle America to northwest South America, in Colombia. It was formerly known as the Clay-colored Robin.
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2. Gray-headed Chacalaca
The Gray-headed Chachalaca is a large bird with a brown body and a grey head and tail. They are largely arboreal and forage in groups of 6 to 12, only occasionally venturing to the ground. These loud birds have a varied diet consisting of fruits such as the spikes of guarumo trees, guavas, and guara fruits as well as leaves and sometimes insects. Inhabitants of tangled thickets and brushy second growth woodland, these birds are found in Central America from eastern Honduras south to northwestern Columbia.
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3. Rufous Motmot
The Rufous Motmot is a large bird with a rufous head and underpats that contrast with a green-blue back, wings, and tail. This species is the second largest and arguably the most spectacular of the motmots, even though it lacks the bright, iridescent patches of turquoise blue on its head that are characteristic of many other Motmot species. When foraging, it is a typical low energy specialist sitting quietly on a shaded horizontal branch for long periods of time from which it suddenly darts out after passing insects. The Rufous Motmot prefers humid lowland and hill forest where it consumes a large variety of food items ranging from various fruits to invertebrates and even small vertebrates, sometimes in the company of army ants.
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4. Crimson-backed Tanager
The Crimson-backed Tanager male has bright scarlet flanks and rump along with a darker crimson head and back while the female and younger birds are a duller dusky red-brown. At closer inspection, one will also notice that the base of the lower beak in males is also swollen and bright white. These birds typically forage in noisy flocks in scrub, edge, and secondary growth forest. They can be found year-round in the lowlands and valleys of northern Colombia, northwestern Venezuela, and Panama.
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Be careful! Other bird species may be mistaken for the Thick-billed Euphonia:
Red-crowned Ant-Tanager
This bird is less bright red, does not have a contrasting black-red crown, and is a rare visitor at the feeder.
Summer Tanager
The male is very bright red, but we have only seen a subadult male at the feeder recently and it is in its orange-red transition.
5. Thick-billed Euphonia
The Thick-billed Euphonia males are a dark blue with a bright yellow head patch, underparts, and neck while the females are a more subdued olive above and yellow below. Even though “bill” is in their common name, it isn’t used to help identify this species. This species is typically found foraging in pairs or small flocks, sometimes even mixed-species flocks. Their range spans from Costa Rica south to southern Amazonia.
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Be careful! Other bird species may be mistaken for the Thick-billed Euphonia:
Tennessee Warbler
This bird is smaller, has a pale eyebrow and underbelly, and usually visits alone.
Mourning Warbler
The female adults and immature individuals are smaller and typically hop around the branches rather than landing on the feeder. Plus, this bird is a rare visitor that visits alone.
5. Gray-cowled Wood-rail
The Gray-cowled Wood-Rail has bright pink legs, a blue-gray head and neck, bright red eyes, and a yellow-green beak. The rest of their body is a gray-brown to rufous brown color. This species primarily occupies swampy forest and forest edge, and the margins of forest streams, and also occurs in mangroves and the edges of marshes. Gray-cowled Wood-Rail usually remains under vegetative cover or in thickets, but sometimes ventures out in the open. The diet is mostly invertebrates, but presumably includes small vertebrates such as frogs, and perhaps also seeds, berries, and palm fruits. Gray-cowled Wood-Rails can be found from southwestern Costa Rica south to northern Argentina.
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Other bird species
Do you see a bird that isn’t described in this list? Don’t worry about tagging it! More than 50 species have been seen at this feeder, but for now we are tagging this small subset.
Food Being Added to the Feeder Example:
In addition to collecting data about when our 6 focal species arrive at the feeder, we want to know when food is added to the feeder. From 7 AM to 5 PM the Canopy Lodge staff will add different types of fruit and food scraps to the feeder roughly every two hours.
Tutorial
Welcome to the first ever Panama Fruit Feeder Investigation!
In this project you will be clicking buttons to collect data as you watch the live stream of the Panama Fruit Feeder cam. By doing so, you’ll help us better understand when certain species come to the feeder. You’ll collect two key pieces of information:
- when the focal species arrive at the feeder
- when food is added to the feeder
Observing Species That Arrive At The Feeder
- See one of the birds from the list come into view? Click its species button to report it. Make sure to click a species button each time an individual of that species arrives at the feeder, in vegetation nearby, or flies through, even if you suspect it’s the same bird moving in and out of the frame.
- Important note: Although over 50 species have been known to visit the feeder, we are only collecting data on 6 focal species.
- Every time you click a button, it will be logged and appear in the status window below the video feed.
Observing Fruit Being Added To The Feeder
- Click the button when you see new fruit being added to the feeder.
- The Canopy Lodge staff will replenish the feeder with fresh food about every 2 hours, from 7 AM to 5 PM.
Finished Collecting Data?
- It’s very important that when you are finished collecting data that you click “END DATA COLLECTION.”
- Even if you don’t see anything, we still want to know!
What If I Click The Wrong Button?
- Don’t worry! You can remove anything that you report by clicking the (X) icon next to the classification in the status window below the video.
- Also, you probably aren’t the only person watching! Just do your best because we will be looking at all of the data that gets tagged, including data from others that are watching at the same time as you.
What If I Don’t Know What The Species Are?
- We’ve got you covered! Check out the Field Guide or watch the video.
- Also, remember we are only asking you to log the arrivals of 6 species, not every species.
What If I See Something Cool?
- Unfortunately we can’t collect data on everything! But this is only the first investigation with this cam and there is potential to do more in the future.
- In the meantime, if you see something cool or see something you have a question about, end the data collection and head over to the Discussion Board. There you can comment on what you saw, ask a question, or see what other people have seen.
What if the cam is offline?
- Once in a while the Canopy Lodge loses power and the cam will go offline.
- When that happens, cam highlights will automatically begin playing. You’ll see “LIVECAM HIGHLIGHTS” in the bottom right corner of the video.
Thanks For Participating!
- This investigation is only possible with your help!
- If you have any questions for the research team, feedback, or see something cool, head over to the Discussion Board.
