ABI 150 Section A - Farewell Stills, Hello R
The Final Data Collection Day
Location: Yolo Bypass Wildlife Area (Lot H, Lot F)
Morning Group: 6:30 am - 12:30 pm
Afternoon Group: 10 am - 4 pm
Today was the last day we went to the Yolo Bypass to collect data. This means we are officially done with field data collection, and now we are only left with suffering through R and writing the actual paper!
Morning Group Kicks Off the Day
06:47 After gathering at the parking lot at 06:30, the morning group arrived at Yolo Bypass and united with Harvey.
The rain stopped on our way, but the weather was still much chillier and cloudier than last week. Huge thanks to Marshall for bringing donuts. Starting the early morning with some glucose definitely helped us stay awake.
07:00 The crew broke into two groups of four and started wandering around in search of stilts.
Group 1: Hannah, Carissa, Josie, Marshall
Group 2: Harvey, Heuijae, Liliana, Sam
Since each group had four people instead of three, and the data tables are now arranged on a single sheet, we kept the same roles as before, with the fourth person managing the time.
We first visited the “Stilt City” we’ve been returning to for the last few weeks, but the stilts seemed pretty nonchalant this morning.
Group 1 decided to head straight south near Lot F, past Stilt City. Group 2 first attempted to locate stilts in the places where they were usually found, but since we could not hear or see any stilts, we also decided to walk all the way from Lot F down to Lot H. From there, we turned left and continued farther south.
The Search for Stilts
08:00 As we reached the other side of the path, we started hearing some stilts, but it was difficult to observe them as the view was blocked by now-grown vegetation.
08:10 As we continued walking along the path, we found several stilts flying in and out of our sight. After taking about 4,000 steps from where we unloaded, a whole new stilt city was uncovered.
Both Group 1 and Group 2 completed the majority of their data collection at this site. There were more than 10 stilts on average, with some flying into and out of the area, and some avocets and cinnamon teals were also present. These stilts were very vocal and active, with a generally high foraging rate and lots of flying behavior observed. Basically, it was a whole group of Nasty Nathans and Nancies.
The weather was also pretty misty in the morning. Probably because of the airborne water droplets, the rangefinder did not seem to work very well. Group 2 had difficulty getting proper readings, but thanks to Marshall, we exchanged it for the more advanced rangefinder, which completely clutched our data collection. Somehow, it worked perfectly without a problem with Group 1…
10:30 The afternoon group made it to the Yolo Bypass and met up with the morning group.
The afternoon group included Riley, Isabella, Olivia, Tanya, Lianna, Taylor, Samantha, and Ryan, and they were split into two groups of 4 as well, where they continued data collection from there.
Side notes:
One thing that stood out today was how quickly the Yolo Bypass has been changing. It was not just the vegetation density and height that changed, but also the dominant species present in the area.
At the beginning of the quarter, the dominant species seemed to include greater yellowlegs, long-billed dowitchers, snowy or greater egrets, and ibises. However, many of them were barely spotted today, especially the yellowlegs, which could have been our alternate focal species instead of the stilts. Thank goodness we did not switch our focal species to yellowlegs!
Due to this shift, the nearest neighbours recorded showed a clear deviation from the earlier sets of data. The morning group mainly recorded other adult stilts, juvenile stilts, avocets, and cinnamon teals near the focal stilts. The afternoon group also observed juvenile stilts, other adult stilts, and mallards as the most abundant nearest neighbors.
Although we didn’t get to determine if this shift was due to the meteorological change or due to the seasonal transition, it still was a valuable observation to make as we wrapped up our last field day.
Goodbye, Field Days
Overall, our last day at the Yolo Bypass was a successful final push for data collection. Even though the weather was misty, the vegetation made observations harder, and the rangefinder decided to have a personality, all groups still managed to collect useful data.
Now that all field data has been gathered, it is time to move on to the next challenge: inputting and cleaning the data, figuring out R, making graphs, and writing the final paper.
Good luck everyone. The birds are free from us now, but R is waiting. I also look forward to some of us returning to the Yolo Bypass sometime in the future to check on whether the Nasty families are doing well!
Tentative Plans for Monday:
10:00-10:05 | Quick check-in + goals for the day
10:05–10:15 | Quick thesis + predictor-response pair check-in
10:15–10:30 | Ryan’s multivariate analysis overview presentation
10:30–10:50 | Choosing graph/analysis types + rearranging seats accordingly
Possible groups could be:
Scatterplot / regression group
Boxplot / t-test or ANOVA group
Bar graph / summary statistics group
GLM / logistic regression / chi-square group
Multivariate analysis group
Still deciding / need help choosing group
10:50–11:40 | Individual R work time + Q&A support
Work on your own:
R code
Graph
Dataset subset
Statistical analysis
Results interpretation (If you finished your data analysis)
Marshall and Ryan will be available to help with:
R troubleshooting
Graph formatting
Choosing the right analysis
Connecting your results to your paper
(11:40–11:45 | Scientific paper structure brief overview) if time allows, and if people want:
This may include:
Introduction
Materials and Methods
Results
Discussion
Conclusion
11:45–11:50 | Wrap-up + next steps
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