BY 498 Senior Project

Dr. Peter May

RESEARCH PROJECTS ON AVIAN ECOLOGY OF EMERALDA BIRDS

Introduction: You have expressed an interest in performing your senior research project using existing, unanalyzed data collected over the past four years at Emeralda Marsh Conservation Area, in Eustis, FL. Because the time-consuming and often tedious work of data collection has already been done for you, I expect any students using this resource to be willing to invest extra time, thought, and intellectual creativity in pursuing the other components of the research project. This includes the formation of an idea, question, or hypothesis to which the existing data may be applicable, doing appropriate literature searches and background reading to become thoroughly familiar with the subject area, entry, manipulation, and analysis of data using Excel or other spreadsheet/database software, and the interpretation of the results and write-up of the project. I will not hand you an idea and associated study design, a data set, and a set of step-by-step instructions on what to do with it. This is supposed to be an independent study initiated and conducted by the student, after all. I’m simply providing you with a source of data.

The data and methodology: Beginning January, 2000, I have been surveying birds once a week at EMCA.  Censuses generally begin 15 to 5 minutes before sunrise, and always no later than 30 minutes after sunrise. I drive a regular route that traverses most of Area 3 (the Lake Griffin Flow-way).  In January 2001, I added a 1.8 mile section to my survey route that follows the Yale-Griffin Canal between where it separates Area 5 to the south and Area 7 to the north. 

My census therefore covers only a relatively small portion of the total range of habitats present at EMCA. I directly survey Areas 3 and 5 (see attached map); my census route covers Area 3 far more completely than Area 5.  My coverage of Area 5 consists only of the levee road south of the Yale Canal, extending between Emeralda Island Road to the west and Rte. 452 to the east (~ 1.8 miles)..  From this vantage point, I can scan much of the impoundments in Area 5 to the south and in Area 7 to the north, as well as the terrestrial habitats closer to the levee.  In Area 3 (the Lake Griffin Flow-way), my census route starts at the southeastern corner (Wood Duck Parking Lot), and traverses about 9 miles of levee roads through the flow-way and on the perimeter of the area.  This includes the 4.3-mile long Interpretive Wildlife Drive, open to the public on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays between  February 1- May 30.

I estimate numbers of each species of birds in six sectors that I recognize based on habitat differences (roughly indicated on attached map).  All census data are subdivided by the sector in which they were collected.  Brief descriptions of each sector are as follows:
A - 0.75 miles - Beginning at Wood Duck Parking Lot, this area comprises primarily successional fields and hammock, with dredged roadside ditches along most of its length.
B - 1.15 miles - a mixture of habitats, including some successional field, wetlands, and hammock islands.
C - 1.8 miles - the southwestern perimeter of the Flow-way, with mostly marsh and wetland habitat to the east, and hammock and creek/canal habitat to the west.  A corridor hammock of hackberry and red maple is present along much of the levee itself, and there is generally a dense swath of elderberry and other shrubby vegetation on the Flow-way side. This part of the route parallels Haines Creek for much of its length; Haines Creek returns water from the Flow-way to Lake Griffin.
D - 2.75 miles - These two levee roads cross the middle of the Flow-way, and include mostly marsh/wetland habitats and a large amount of open water.  The east side of the the levee crossing the Flow-way from east to west (Airstrip Road) also has successional field and brushy border habitat.
E - 1.75 miles - This levee is the northern boundary of the Flow-way, and includes a small amount of cypress swamp at its southwest corner.  The rest consists mostly of marsh and open water habitat to the south, and canal/impoundments to the north.
F - 1.8 miles - The western half of this levee crosses former pasture land, and the eastern part is between two large shallow-water impoundments.  Along most of its length, the Yale Canal, just north of the levee road, is bordered by a corridor of dense willow thickets.

Surveys generally take between 4 and 6 hours, depending on the number of birds present and their distribution.   The specific sequence in which the middle sectors (C and D) are visited varies somewhat to acommodate 1-way traffic while the driving route is open, but in general, the first 1-2 hours of the survey are spent in the southern sectors (A and B), the next 2-3 hours are spent in C and D, and the final 1-2 hours are in E and F. 

Birds are identified by sight and sound, and approximate numbers of each species are estimated.  For widely ranging birds that might move between sectors, individuals are counted as different individuals each time they are seen unless the bird is clearly one that has been seen before elsewhere.  Therefore, for some wide-ranging species, such as Northern Harriers, for example, total daily counts may be overestimates of the total number of birds present.  My primary aim in collecting data in this way is to document which specific areas of EMCA are being used by different species, and to provide a consistent index of how many birds are present that can be compared between dates, rather than obtaining absolute counts of numbers of birds present (which for most species is probably a futile endeavor for a single observer conducting strip transects).

Species that are consistently seen in reliable numbers for at least part of the year include:

Pied-billed Grebe Great Crested Flycatcher
Double-crested Cormorant Eastern Phoebe
Anhinga Empidonax sp.
Great Blue Heron Tree Swallow
Tricolored Heron Barn Swallow
Snowy Egret Purple Martin
Great Egret Blue Jay
Cattle Egret American Crow
Little Blue Heron Fish Crow
Green Heron Tufted Titmouse
Black-crowned Night Heron Carolina Wren
Least Bittern House Wren
American Bittern Marsh Wren
Yellow-crowned Night Heron American Robin
Black-crowned Night Heron Hermit Thrush
Wood Stork Northern Mockingbird
Glossy Ibis Gray Catbird
White Ibis Brown Thrasher
Mottled Duck Blue-gray Gnatcatcher
Blue-winged Teal Ruby-crowned Kinglet
Northern Shoveler Red-eyed Vireo
Green-winged Teal Blue-headed Vireo
Gadwall White-eyed Vireo
American Wigeon Northern Parula
Ring-necked Duck Prothonotary Warbler
Fulvous Whistling Duck Black-and-White Warbler
Black-bellied Whistling Duck Orange-crowned Warbler
Wood Duck Yellow Warbler
Turkey Vulture Yellow-throated Warbler
Black Vulture Yellow-rumped Warbler
Osprey Prairie Warbler
Bald Eagle Palm Warbler
Red-shouldered Hawk Northern Waterthrush
Red-tailed Hawk Ovenbird
Northern Harrier American Redstart
Cooper’s Hawk Yellow-breasted Chat
Sharp-shinned Hawk Common Yellowthroat
American Kestrel Cedar Waxwing
Limpkin European Starling
Sora Northern Cardinal
Purple Gallinule Blue Grosbeak
Common Moorhen Painted Bunting
American Coot Indigo Bunting
Black-necked Stilt American Goldfinch
Killdeer Savannah Sparrow
Least Sandpiper Swamp Sparrow
Ring-billed Gull Song Sparrow
Bonaparte’s Gull Lincoln’s Sparrow
Forster’s Tern White-crowned Sparrow
Caspian Tern White-throated Sparrow
Northern Bobwhite Bobolink
Ground Dove Red-winged Blackbird
Mourning Dove Boat-tailed Grackle
Chimney Swift Common Grackle
Belted Kingfisher
Northern Flicker
Pileated Woodpecker
Red-bellied Woodpecker
Downy Woodpecker
Yellow-bellied Sapsucker

The available data would support projects dealing with distribution, seasonal dynamics, or ecological distribution of any of the above species or well-defined taxonomic groups (wading birds, waterfowl, raptors, warblers, sparrows, etc.)

What the student must do: It is your responsibility to come up with a biologically meaningful question or hypothesis to address with these data. The range of topics possible is broad; basically any ecological question that can be addressed with population estimates of one or more species collected over short time frames (weekly), medium time frames (seasonally), and longer time frames (between years) is possible. Questions might deal with population dynamics of individual species or taxonomic groups, or larger community-based questions of overall diversity and its relation to season, habitat, environmental characteristics, etc. If you feel completely lost in coming up with a question, you don’t know enough about the general sorts of questions asked by ecologists and ornithologists, and you need to do some background reading (either texts or primary literature) on the general topic or specific group of birds you find most interesting. Once you have chosen a question, you must be proficient with data entry and analysis (or be willing to become proficient). The data entry, manipulation and analysis are your responsibility.

What I will do: First and foremost, I provide the data. I’ll also give you guidance in selecting the specific subsets of data you will need once your topic is chosen, designing a plan of attack for entering and analyzing the data, and assist you in interpretation of the results obtained. I’ll also help you with accessing and assimilating the literature in the topic field you have chosen, and in the writing and revising of the final senior research report.