1. An Assessment of Daily Activity Patterns of Birds in Lancer Park
Caitlin Harris, Max Flores, Emily Humphries, and Haven Hogan
Longwood Biology and Environmental Sciences Department

2. The Time of Day on the Daily Diversity of Birds
The foraging traits of birds can effectively exploit a particular habitat (Robinson and Holmes, 1982).
Such as flight habits, sight, and hearing.
Our focus was on the feeding patterns of diurnal bird species populations in the fall season.
Haven

3. Time-Place learning Selasphorus rufus hummingbirds
Patch 1
Time-Place learning
Selasphorus rufus hummingbirds
Over time, they learned when to come to a certain patch to retrieve food (Tello-Ramos et al. 2015).
Patch 2
Percentage of Visits
Patch 3
Patch 4
Caitlin
Time (min)

4. Woodpecker Activity Patterns
Different feeding behavior responses to seasonal change.
Reduced feeding efforts in the spring compared to the winter (Olsson et al., 2000).
Max

5. Time Dependent Bird Activity
Bird activity decreases as the morning progresses, plateaus in the mid-day, and rising again as night approaches (Robbins et. al, 1986).
Time of Day (hours)
Emily
Figure 3- Comparison of cardinal activity with sparrow activity through the day

6. Foraging Activity
Birds foraging patterns in early morning compared to late afternoon
More new individual discoveries were made in the morning rather than late afternoon (Farine and Lang 2013)
Time of day
Haven
Set up feeders randomly in forest
Took data on amount of new discoveries to the feeders by birds

7. Specific Aim Our two main questions were…
Is there a significant difference between the diversity of bird species and the time of day at Lancer Park?
Is there a significant difference between the diversity of bird species and the climate at Lancer Park?
Caitlin

8. Study Area EEC (Environmental Education Center)
Multiple bird feeders (examples below)
Haven

9. Variables Predictor variables Time of day (7am, 12pm, 5pm)
Other Predictors:
Temperature, Pressure, Wind Speed, Humidity, Precipitation
Response variables
The number of birds (abundance)
The number of bird species (diversity)
Constants
Same location
Same bird feed
Emily

10. Methods Collecting Samples: Point Count approach 7am, Noon, and 5pm
5 minute acclimation
15 minute duration of recording
10 days in total
Max

11. Methods Data collected: Temperature (℃) Wind Speed (mph) Humidity (%)
Precipitation (in)
Pressure (inHg)
Identification:
Merlin Bird ID App
Statistical Analysis:
One-way ANOVA
Tukey HSD
Linear Regression
Max

12. The Species that were encountered
Max

13. Bird Species Encounters
Eastern Towhee
Mourning Dove
Northern Cardinal
Max
Blue Jay
Carolina Chickadee

14. The Average Number of Species at 7am, 12pm, and 5pm
Haven

15. The Average Number of Individuals at 7am, 12pm, and 5pm
Haven

16. The Average Simpson’s Index of Dominance (D=∑p2i)
Emliy

17. The Average Shannon-Wiener index of Species Diversity (H’=-∑Pi*lnPi)
Emily

18. The Total Number of Species Over the Study Period (10 Days)
Emily

19. Linear Regression of Wind Speed (mph) on the Total Number of Species
P-value :
F-value : 4.37
Max

20. Linear Regression of Temperature (℃) on the Total Number of Individuals
P-value :
F-value : 8.004
Caitlin

21. Linear Regression of Temperature (℃) on the Total Number of Species
P-value :
F-value : 11.9
Cailtin

22. Linear Regression of Pressure (inHg) on the Total Number of Individuals
P-value :
F-value : 4.6
Emliy

23. Linear Regression of Pressure (inHg) on the Total Number of Species
P-value :
F-value : 4.882
Emily

24. Major Findings
There is a significant difference between the time of day and the diversity of birds.
There is a significant difference between certain climate aspects and the diversity of birds.
Emliy

25. Discussion
Data suggests that seasonal migration may influence bird species diversity
Potential errors
Future studies should aim to collectively gather data from other regions over a longer time span
EMILY

26. Acknowledgements Our project was made possible by the following:
Longwood University Department of Biological and Environmental Sciences
Dr. Sujan “Henk” Henkanaththegedara
Longwood University Environmental Education Center (EEC)
Birdwatchers Inc.
Caitlin

27. Literature Cited:
Farine, D. R., & Lang, S. D The early bird gets the worm: foraging strategies of wild songbirds lead to the early discovery of food sources. Biology Letters, 9(6), doi: /rsbl
Olsson, O., Wiktander, U., & Nilsson, S Daily Foraging Routines and Feeding Effort of a Small Bird Feeding on a Predictable Resource. Proceedings: Biological Sciences 267(1451):
Robbins, C Effect of time of day on bird activity. United States Geological Survey,
Robinson, S.K., and Holmes, R.T Foraging Behavior of Forest Birds: The Relationships Among Search Tactics, Diet, and Habitat Structure. Ecology, 63(6),
Tello-Ramos, M. C., Hurly, T. A., Higgott, C., and Healy, S. D Time-place learning in wild, free-living hummingbirds. Elsevier 104:
Thayer, P. Common feeder birds. WildBirds, Naples, FL. Available from Sept 2017).