ABI 150 - birds, birds, birds!

Following an unexpected but welcome change in course number, the class now known as ABI 150 section 001 piled into its two vans and headed toward the Yolo Bypass. We couldn’t have asked for better weather, it was sunny with mild temperatures. The goal of today was superficially very simple: to Observe. Also in the forecast, tons of birds!
Ryan started us off with some unstructured observations – setting everyone loose in our first site adjacent to I80, parking area A. It was exceptionally noisy with road traffic but under the freeway we did notice both swallows and bats nesting. We also performed a 15-minute silent writing task to get any ideas out of brains about what we want from the day or the course in general. This was an unfiltered exercise to just get the ideas out and worry later about whether they are good or not. Perhaps we have already started pulling on a thread that will lead us to our chosen project.

From there, we went south in the bypass to parking area C. At parking area C, Ryan provided us with a template for structuring our observations. We broke our observations into 4 phases:

  1. Counting: Count the number of animals you can see.
  2. Behavior: Why might that animal be doing that behavior? Discuss with a group partner.
  3. Interactions: How will that behavior affect the other animals nearby? Does that interaction seem negative towards others? Discuss with a different group partner.
  4. Location: Does it have a preference for certain locations? Does it seem to have to compete for those? Why would it have a preference if it does seem to have one?

We did each of these for 10 minutes and were prompted to switch via walkie talkie. Over.

Following our first round of structured observations, we ate lunch at the vans and picnic table. We then moved on to parking area F, which must stand for Fantastic, because this was an exceptionally diverse site. There was more topography and vegetation than others, which gave opportunities to ask a few more kinds of questions. We repeated our structured observation protocol, with groups going off further and finding interesting animals and animal evidence (molted crayfish).
Our final observational stop for the day was at lot B where we did a methods comparison, comparing the species we observed using either visual means (binoculars and guides) or sound monitoring (Merlin app). Groups differed in which method provided the highest species counts, but all together we recorded 20 species in about 20 minutes. Just about everyone saw a greater egret, but some more experienced birders came up with impressive 10 minute Yolo Bypass speed runs. See below for a plot of the data:

We finished our afternoon together by stating our top question or observation from the day. Ironically, many of them were both about noise pollution and its affect animals and went unheard due to this very same road noise. Clearly I80 plays a large role in the auditory environment at Yolo bypass. Here are all the questions (paraphrased) that folks came up with in no particular order:

Our Proposed Ideas and Questions From Today

  1. Are animals near very loud roads (like I80) experiencing more predation because they are less likely to hear a predator coming?
  2. How does being near a road affect biodiversity?
  3. How is the visual cue for a predator received by a tadpole?
  4. Does nectar quantity vary with distance from road? Don't see many pollinators.
  5. How does density of animals across space change with animal diversity? Birds frequently crowded in particular bodies of water.
  6. Which wetland birds are better adapted to agriculturally managed land?
  7. How many of the shelters (otter, beaver) are occupied and what paths do these animals use to move around this habitat?
  8. How does rice paddy habitat quality compare to a more naturally managed wetland in terms of supporting bird populations?
  9. How do Red-winged blackbirds balance on thin, flexible reeds? What preferences do they have for physical features of plants, like thickness?
  10. How do seasonal wetlands affect migratory birds, compared to year-round populations?
  11. Does being in a group (i.e. pair, flock) help every member find more food? How does this benefit compare to predation avoidance?

Before Monday:

  1. Choose a species that you saw today.
  2. Post a picture of the species on the Discord creature-report channel.
  3. Post a paper to our group Zotero (and read it).
  4. Post an ecological question related to your species as a reply to your Discord photo.

For Next Time: Agenda

We will meet at 10:00 am on Monday in the classroom.

  • 10:00 - 10:45: Brainstorming activity
  • 10:45 - 11:45: Group literature search and discussion
  • 11:45 - 11:50: Jessica (blogger) briefs class

Keep pulling on those threads!

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