More Adventures at the Pond Lab

Allie has already posted about our adventures at the Pond Lab, so I'll try to add in some of the other interesting things we learned there as well.
Project Summary: We each went to a different pond at the lab and noted the birds that flew into them as well as any nests that were around the pond. Here's an aerial photo of the Pond Lab, so you can kind of get an idea of where we were.

We watched the birds at our ponds for about an hour (30 minutes for males, 30 minutes for females). We tried to determine the territories of the males by watching their flight patterns and how they interacted with other birds that visited their pond.
At the pond I was at, there was very little bird activity. Only 5 birds flew onto my pond the entire time I was there and they only stayed for maybe 15 minutes total. However, i did find that the males seemed to have territories and would quickly chase others away if they overstepped their boundaries.
Here are diagrams I made that shows the flight pattern of two of the male birds I saw, and how I used that to make a territory diagram:

Several class members also made other observations about the blackbird behavior:

Kate and Brittany found that the birds spent much of their time perching, but also spent a large amount of time flicking their tail, "check-calling", and songspread, which can be signs of courtship or territorial display.

Here's the pie chart they made for how males spend their time:

Females spent time foraging or simply flying over the ponds, but not actually landing or interacting with other birds like the males did.

Here's the pie chart they made for how males spend their time:

Al found that the birds seemed to prefer a large wooden post to his pond. They seemed to think the post was a bathroom too...
Karen and Cristy noticed that the males with larger epaulets (the red part on their wings) were all located in the middle ponds, which are more protected from outside predators as well as have larger amounts of vegetation around of the ponds.

We saw lots of other wildlife and plants, too! My pond had many, many bull frogs! When you got near them, they seemed to scream as they jumped into the water.