Kat's+bird+project

=Hot sauce, barbecue sauce, and vinegar oh my!=
 * Which bird feeder will our winged little friends visit the most?**

Question
Will the birds prefer a feeder with seed mixed in with hot sauce, barbecue sauce, or vinegar?

Hypothesis:
I think the birds will favor one feeder over the other. Possibly the bird feeder with hot sauce or barbeque sauce, because I am not sure the birds will like vinegar, because it has such a strong taste and smell, but I could be wrong. I read a lot of different articles trying to find out whether birds can taste or not, some said they could, and some said they couldn't. But the majority said that they did indeed have a sense of taste. [] this is a good website about bird senses that includes info about birds taste buds (the paragraphs about birds sense of taste are the thirds and fourth paragraphs from the bottom).

Independent variable
The hot sauce in one feeder, barbeque sauce in another, and vinegar in the last one.

Dependent variable
Which bird feeder is visited the most.

Control variables

 * The environment in which each separate bird feeder is placed.
 * The bird seed in each bird feeder.
 * The three bird feeders.

Procedure:

 * Make three different feeders (see instructions under **materials**).
 * Fill them all with one cup of bird seed. The bird seed should be a generic, unflavored mix.
 * Mix in two tablespoons of hot sauce, barbeque sauce, and vinegar in with the bird seed and then transfer into your bird feeders. You may want to use a funnel when putting your bird seed into the feeder, because it can become wet and clumpy and hard to scoop in. Note: the barbeque sauce, hot sauce, and vinegar all smell __//**really**//__ bad.
 * Put the feeders outside each about the same distance apart and in a spot that is not very different from the others.
 * At the end of the week, empty the bird seed into a cup measure to see how much was eaten.
 * Record how much seed was eaten each day from each feeder and compare.

Materials I used
1. Take //three ordinary plastic bottles// 2. Remove their labels 3. Cut of the top of the bottle with a knife (a //kitchen knife// works) 4. Take an //awl// and make two holes on opposite sides of the bottle and just below the top. This is so you can run //twine// through the the holes to hang your feeder. 5. Take a //cup measure//, fill it up with water and poor it in the water bottle. take a //sharpie// and mark it at the one cup point. Then, about half the way down from the one cup mark, use the awl again to poke two holes on opposites of the bottle to run a //dowel// through for a perch. 6. Use the awl to poke three holes above the perch, then take //scissors// and turn the holes in the plastic bottles into slits.
 * bird seed (insert brand name here)
 * barbecue sauce (insert brand name here)
 * hot sauce (insert brand name here)
 * vinegar
 * bird feeders x3...

Observations
Experiment started Wednesday morning, November 2nd, 2011, and ended Sunday, November 6th, 2011. //Wedenesday, November 2nd, 2011// Day One It is Wednesday evening and the bird feeders are still full to the one cup mark, although I really didn't expect any birds to come on the first day. //Thursday, November 3rd, 2011// Day Two It is day two and the vinegar feeder, though it has not yet attracted bird, did find the attention of a a squirrel yesterday afternoon. He knocked some bird seed out of the feeder and then ate it off the ground. I'm not sure whether this is because he liked the vinegar best, but probably because this feeder was the one hanging the closest to the ground, so he had easy access to it. Since I had checked the one cup mark I drew on the bird feeders (see bird feeder instructions under **materials**) before I saw the squirrel knock out the bird seed, I knew the birds had not eaten any of the seed. Since this experiment is testing whether birds will like barbecue sauce, hot sauce, or vinegar the most, and not squirrels, I decided to refill the feeder to the one cup mark so I could measure later on if the birds had eaten from the feeder. It took 1/4 of a cup to get the seed back to the one cup mark, so I know that is how much the squirrels ate. //Friday, November 4th, 2011// Day Three It is day three and I have still not seen any birds at the feeder! I have not yet measured how much bird seed has been eaten, because it doesn't look like any has. I have decided to measure how much bird seed was eaten at the end of the week, instead of every other day as I had planned. //Saturday, November 5th, 2011// Day Four Day four, experiment ends tomorrow, and still no bird seed eaten.

Results
When I went outside Sunday evening to measure the bird seed in the feeders, I found that the barbecue sauce and hot sauce feeders still seemed to be no lower then before (aka no bird seed had been eaten). I then saw that the barbecue sauce feeder was //__covered in ants!!__// You could barely see the bird perch/dowel because there were so many little black bugs crawling all over it! On closer inspection, I found that both the hot sauce and vinegar feeders had a couple ants on them to. I did not bring the ant infested feeders inside to measure them. I did, however, notice that the vinegar feeder was filled to the same spot it was been before when the squirrels knocked out some bird seed and ate it off the ground (see **Observations** //Thursday, November 3rd, 2011// Day Two). This means that 1/4 cup of the vinegar feeder had been eaten. I am not sure if this is because the birds ate it or if the squirrels paid a return visit.


 * **seed flavor** || **amount eaten** ||
 * barbecue sauce || none ||
 * hot sauce || none ||
 * vinegar || 1/4 cup (eaten by birds or squirrels?) ||

Discussion
My experiment was to see whether birds would like vinegar, hot sauce, or barbecue sauce. I thought they would most likely favor one over the other, and that they probably wouldn't like the vinegar, because it smells so strong. My results didn't really supported my hypothesis. I never saw the birds visit the feeder, and the barbecue and hot sauce feeders were still at the one cup mark I drew on the feeder. 1/4 of a cup of the vinegar feeder, however, was eaten. I am not sure whether the birds ate it or the squirrels, but I saw a squirrel at the vinegar feeder before. I refilled the feeder after seeing the squirrel at the vinegar feeder the first time, because I knew that it had been at the one cup mark before that. I do not know whether it was the birds who ate 1/4 cup of the vinegar feeder, or the squirrels. So I don't know whether the birds liked none of the feeders, or just the vinegar one. Although I suspect the squirrels, since the birds never visited the feeder at all before, and probably didn't have enough time to eat a whole quarter cup, but maybe they did. And the squirrels had already shown that they had interest in the vinegar feeder previously. I am not sure why the birds didn't really eat at the feeders. Maybe they already had all the food they needed from other feeders. Maybe they didn't recognize the water bottles as bird feeders, or couldn't figure out how to get the seed (my home-made water bottle feeders were a bit weird). Maybe they didn't like the vinegar, barbecue and hot sauce, and maybe it was the squirrel who ate from the vinegar feeder. Or maybe by the time they discovered they liked the feeder, my experiment was already over. Maybe they didn't like the ants on the feeders. The feeder with barbecue sauce especially had a lot of ants, probably because the barbecue sauce was sweet. I am also not sure why the squirrels seemed to favor the vinegar feeder that time when they knocked some seed out and ate it off the ground. Maybe it was because, at that time, it was the feeder closest to the ground, or maybe they liked the smell and/or taste of the seed.
 * Follow up ideas for how to improve this experiment**
 * Make better bird feeders that the birds will have easy access to.
 * Put the bird feeders out one or two days before I start my project and add in the barbecue sauce, hot sauce, and vinegar so that the birds have time to find my feeders.
 * Hang the feeders somewhere where the birds and ants can't get to it
 * Run experiment for a longer amount of time.
 * Try and find a way to keep the squirrels away
 * Might want to try an experiment with hot sauce, barbecue sauce, vinegar and regular bird seed.
 * Follow up ideas for other related experiments**
 * Would squirrels like vinegar, hot sauce or barbeque sauce? To run this experiment I would want to design new feeders, run it for a longer amount of time (which I probably should have done with this bird experiment), and make sure that the squirrels would have easy access to all of the feeders. I would also have to keep the birds away from the seed, although I'm not sure they would like it anyways, since they didn't seem to in this experiment.

Resources
[] I'm not sure this is a great website to learn about birds sense of taste, it's just one of those question answer sites called //askville// by amazon, but it had information and links to other good sites about birds sense of taste (see link below) [] (note: the paragraphs about birds sense of taste are the fourth and third paragraphs from the bottom)

And thanks to my dad who helped me make my bird feeders and set up my experiment!!!