Panama Feeder Question Design
The Bird Cams Lab community recently filled out a quick poll about which question they were most interested in investigating on the Panama Fruit Feeder Cam, and the results are in!
The question that rose to the top was:
When do different bird species arrive at the feeder–and does the pattern change throughout the day?
Questions related to aggressive interactions at the feeder also garnered interest from the community, and more potential questions were added by participants Alicia MOTTUR and Danielle1968. If there is enough interest, then we can potentially investigate more than one question at a time. For example, we could collect data that helps us better understand the presence of certain species as well as when aggression happens. But for now, we will start by focusing in on the question that received the most interest.
We need your help to figure out how to (1) refine the question and (2) collect data to answer it. The wording of the question is not set in stone, and we still need to do some brainstorming and discussion before we are ready to jump into data collection.
- Which collection of species should we investigate?
- Should we measure other things besides species presence, such as weather, presence of certain fruits, or when fruit is added to the feeder?
- Are we interested in a visitation pattern throughout the day? Do we want to compare day-to-day variation?
- Should we aim to watch the feeder throughout the day? Or focus on the same time over multiple days?
- Are there other things that we need to consider?
Comment below with how you might answer these questions with respect to the question:
When do different bird species arrive at the feeder–and does the pattern change throughout the day?