Statistics

Ugh, I have come to the conclusion that I am one of the biggest geeks I know! Why? I'll tell you. I LOVE statistics, no joke. The on-line class is long and has taken an incredible amount of work this term but actually doing statistical analysis is awesome. Over the holiday weekend I started a study comparing the species and number of birds that come to the feeders at my parents' house in Grants Pass, Oregon (rural) to the birds that come to my feeder here in Corvallis ("urban"). Normally our feeders here are swarming with birds between 9:00 am and noon but today I have sat at my sliding glass door, doing statistics homework in between 10 min feeder watches. There has been activity, not nearly as much as I had expected. Preliminary analysis indicates that mom has a larger number of birds, including an obvious pair of white-breasted nuthatches, but we have a larger variety of birds. We were also required to find an article to analyze for this week's discussion. I found one on Kirtland's warblers. Warblers are one of my favorite groups of birds and this article further peaked my interest.

Kirtland's are an endangered species, primarily because of the habitat loss that was occurring in the ONLY place this species breeds. The entire population of Kirtland's warblers breeds in the northern area of the lower Michigan peninsula. They winter in the Bahamas. Thus, I am constantly torn between grad school for my PhD so I can do more research and my Master's in Education so that I can dedicate all of my free time studying birds and trying to get youth involved. I keep coming back to that. I was given so many opportunities when I was young, it seems appropriate that I try to give others the same opportunities. If I get my PhD I worry that I'll become too constrained to one area, I wish that I lived in a time where I could be a naturalist and just travel studying birds, learning from them and educating about them. Why doesn't anybody have an actual ornithology degree? Why can't I just go somewhere to dedicate myself to learning systematics, behavior, "all" about birds?