Blog 4 Update

This graph is a rough representation of the Peregrine Falcon habitat data overlaid with US Urban Areas data.

Blog Post 4

This week I have not made any changes to the maps I have made, but I have found new data available through ebird detailing 2016 peregrine falcon observations. I have run into a few problems with this data:
1. It is data for all of the birds they have on record, so it is a huge file and requires me to isolate peregrine falcons. I also only have a sample so I do not know what the real data look like. Which brings us to...
2. I will have to write up an abstract/ proposal to request the full set of data from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology to obtain the full data that I need, with all of the observations. This will be a massive file, and I can already foresee issues downloading it if/when I get it.

I have also been working on finding new land use/ land cover data, because I was unhappy with the way the urban areas layer I had chosen before was working (or not working). I have been trying to download this new data from the NLCD, but I keep running into issues where it tells me I cannot unzip the folder because the G Drive is full...

I think I have decided that the direction I want to move towards with my data is comparing the 2001 range data with the 2016 ebird observation data, to see if the birds have stayed within that range or if anything has changed in 15 years.
I am not sure if I will get to compare ideal peregrine falcon habitat based on certain criteria as I wanted too, but I think their range does cover what is considered (by the birds) good habitat, so maybe I can map urban areas over the range map instead, to see if urbanization poses a potential threat to their range.