Distance- based dataset 4: frequency of bird sightings

Lab took place on a very rainy and windy Tuesday September 29, 2015 at the York University Danby Woodlot and Grasslands. Occured at 2:30 and finished at 5:10 and was done with the assistance of Kathy, Houra, and Khaula. My group and I predicted that because of the changing weather conditons of cloudy skies to constant wind and rain, the frequency of birds sighted was most likely less frequent than what it would be like on a sunnier day. The experiment was to observe the frequency of birds and their species in both the Danby woodlot and grasslands. This was done by sighting birds within a certain distance of the belt transect, which for our group, was 8 metres max and the transect length was 20 metres. An observer waited and looked around for two minutes on a part of the transect and when a bird was spotted, they would write down the estimated location of where the species was spotted from the belt transect, the estimate of its species (RTU), and the estimate of the wind speed (in beaufort scale) that the bird was travelling in. The observer would repeat this cycle every two minutes on a different section of the transect in order to cover more ground. After the entire length of the belt transect had been used for bird sighting, it was placed in a new location 4 more times in the Danby woodlot, and this process was repeated again in the Grasslands.