What’s Happening When Hawks Vocalize?

Welcome to the first week of Hawk Talk Data Exploration!

Let’s dig into the data you collected to see what we can find out.

Today we’re featuring a visualization that looks at what the hawks were doing when they were vocalizing.

Click here to see the interactive version of this graph.

This chart helps us begin to explore our main research question: do hawks use different kinds of calls in different situations at the nest? To begin exploring this question, we’ll first look at what the hawks are doing when they make any type of vocalization at all (later, we’ll take a closer look at different types of vocalizations).

Each color refers to a situation at the nest. Note that the height of each colored bar is different for nestlings compared to adults. When the nestlings are vocalizing, they are mostly being fed or the adults are brooding. When the adults are vocalizing, they are mostly brooding and sometimes arriving/departing.

To see how the nestlings might change their vocalizations with the different situations at the nest, click here. To see this for the adults, click here.

Do you have any ideas about what these patterns might mean? Should we look at or consider something else when looking at these patterns?

Share your thoughts below and then play with an interactive version of this chart here.