Field Course in Behavioural Methods (practice) WB-BI-ANG-06cw

The main aim of the course is to provide students with a hands-on experience in several field research techniques used in the study of animal behaviour. The students will not only perform assigned tasks, but also take part in planning the work and analyzing results, so they can get used to assessing the suitability of different methods to answering particular research questions, identifying their advantages and drawbacks and possible sources of bias. The experimental methods will provide an opportunity to focus on control goups, on what makes (and what does not make) a good control in a particular experiment. The course should also show students how important it is to carefully note every detail of the work and its outcome, label all recordings and samples immediately etc.

We plan to be using the following methods:
- playback experiment: eliciting a respons of male tawny owls to recorded calls of conspecifics
- ultrasound detector study: analysis of the pattern of evening emergence of serotine or noctule bats from a day roost and/or recording of echolocation activity along a transect
- cafeteria test with video recording: testing the ability to tell empty from full wallnuts and peanuts in crows
- predator/novelty response study: audio and video recording of the response of blue and/or great tits to a dummy snake and a non-animal object of similar size and moement