Finishing up data collection for February

Great Blue Heron

Red-Tailed Hawk

Abert's Towhee

So this past weekend was the last weekend for collecting data in February. This month has given me quite a bit to consider about my results. 3 of my six collection days were rained out. I still got out there and identified the birds that I saw but there seemed to be a markedly smaller number of birds active on these days. I haven't had a chance to enter my data into my sheet yet so I'm curious if I am going to see a big skew to my results. If it does I'll have to figure out if I should just disregard the data, or just point out that it is an outlier when compared to the rest of the data points. I'll be planning on seeing my mentor early next week to see what his thoughts are this predicament. Luckily, Sunday was gorgeous and I saw a ton of wildlife and got some great shots after I finished my identifications.

Sunrise at Tres Rios Wetlands

February Data Collection

Neotropic Cormorant 

This week I collected data in Downtown Phoenix, Encanto Park, and Saguaro Lake. It was a bit rainy and very cold this weekend and it seems like it will be the same this weekend but overall it was a very successful trip. Saguaro lake was especially exciting this week. I had two first time sightings at the lake. As I was turning my canoe around I looked up at the top of one of the cliffs there was a beautiful adult bald eagle perched and taking in the scenery. It was really a sight to see when it took off from the cliff. The second bird that I saw was a violet-green swallow, there were quite a few flying around the reeds on the side of the lake. Their plumage is incredible, almost iridescent in the morning sun. So, overall even cold and rainy, it was an awesome week to be outside.

Sunrise at Saguaro Lake

The best little research partner

Back out in the field this week!

American White Pelican

Northern Cardinal

Time to start collection for February!  This weekend I will observing Downtown, Encanto Park, and Saguaro Lake. Hopefully this will be my last really chilly lake trip. I'm hoping that by Next month the temperature will have gone up enough for me to be able to go out on the lake in shorts and a t-shirt instead of 2 layers of pants and hoodies. This month I am going to be spending a little extra time focusing on some smaller species that I think may have been overlooked or misidentified in previous runs. I have also been noticing some new species starting to appear around my house so I should have my work cut out for me this month! I'm looking forward to coming back from my research this weekend with some more great data and maybe even a few nice shots of some new birds.

Data Input

Canada Goose

Northern Mockingbird

Gila Woodpecker

Well, every awesome day out identifying birds and hiking in some really beautiful areas in and around phoenix gets followed by some pretty tedious data input. I spent a lot of time this month updating my spreadsheet in excel to make it more user friendly. Now, once I input my findings for the month all of my calculations will populate themselves for both my Simpson Index and my Shannon-Weiner index. This will save me at least 3 hours of calculations each week so I'm really excited about that. I have attached my findings so far below as well as some more pictures that I took while out collecting data.

Simpsons Index	December	January
Encanto Park	0.831	0.870
Phoenix College	0.712	0.826
Downtown Phoenix	0.823	0.874
Saddle Mountain	0.933	0.833
Tres Rios	0.758	0.899
Saguaro Lake	0.814	0.719
Shannon Weiner
H (Shannon Index)	December	January
Encanto Park	2.155	2.371
Phoenix College	1.782	2.003
Downtown Phoenix	1.868	2.257
Saddle Mountain	1.886	1.517
Tres Rios	1.869	2.569
Saguaro Lake	2.033	1.783