Last Week | Week 11

Hello birders!

As my senior project comes to an end, there are so many things I would like to say as well as people I would like to thank.

Acknowledgments
I would like to thank Carolyn Knight and the Santa Clara Valley Audubon Society for allowing me the opportunity to be a nest box monitor at McClellan Ranch Preserve for these last three years. I would also like to thank my parents for helping me monitor these boxes every week. This is not an easy one person job, and my parents helped a lot with moving the process along. Their help with identifying the birds, taking photos, and assisting me with carrying all of my materials made the process much smoother and quicker. I would also like to thank my internal advisor, Dr. B, for helping me formulate this activity into a research project. This was just an idea when we started this process, and thanks to everyone’s guidance, it has materialized into something I am very proud of.

Reflections and Future Plans
While this project was a lot of what I expected, there were some things that I wish I would have done differently. In the future, I definitely would have tried to upload videos of me monitoring the nest boxes. While recording would have been very hard, I think it would have helped my audience really understand how to monitor effectively. This project also taught me that results are not always ideal. The storms this spring had a big impact on my ability to get in the field and collect data. Unlike conventional laboratory research, my research heavily relied on nature and there was a large part of my research that was based on uncertainty. I was pleasantly surprised by the nesting season as well, something that I think the increased rains this year caused. In terms of future plans I have for this project, research in this field is never ending. While this project is ending, I will continue to monitor throughout the end of the summer and will collect data and do everything I have been doing these past ten weeks. As I head off to college, I am looking for a monitor that will take over for me at McClellan. If you’ve been keeping up with my blogs, please do not hesitate to reach out if you are interested in this volunteer opportunity.