Suggestion for future

• by Shiphrah

  Since you're looking at social interactions, it might help to know if some birds are standing by hungrily or because their crop is full. I just marked ACW0002fbb where it's very clear that a couple of condors standing at the far right have full crops. So they may not be low status waiting for a chance but high status resting while they digest.

  It occurs to me that in redesign of the interface you could add a check box for "Full Crop" Just an idea.

  Posted February 15, 2015 10:14 PM

• by myraf scientist

  thanks for the comment. You are right, having a full crop would be a useful addition --- this was one of the things we had on our initial 'wish list' to begin with but we had to compromise and let some stuff go when the site was being developed. We are hoping we can get at some of this information because the photos can be put into the series of when they were taken so we can determine if condors not eating in this photo were eating in an earlier photo.

  Posted February 17, 2015 4:53 AM

• by DZM admin in response to Shiphrah's comment.

  We try to be careful about not overwhelming our volunteers with too many questions, which is probably why "crop" had to be cut. The task of classifying has to be kept simple. But perhaps it could be added if Condor Watch ever gets a redesign!

  Posted February 18, 2015 3:59 PM

• by mapat

  Would hashtagging any "really full" crops (with or without numbers?) help?

  Posted February 19, 2015 8:54 PM

• by DZM admin

  Sure! At least, I think so... not a scientist, but it seems interesting. Shall we say #crop as the hashtag, to keep it simple?

  Posted February 20, 2015 3:22 PM

• by wreness moderator

  The scientists are off at a convention right now and will be back very soon.

  It'd be best to wait to see if this would be something they'd find helpful for the project at this point and the circumstances that would be most helpful for their data. For instance if this would apply only to birds that are further than 2 body lengths from the carcass (since they wouldn't be the ones obviously eating.) Then these instructions can be added to the rest of them on how to mark the photos, can be added to the HELP and FAQ pages as something required for the project 😃

  Posted February 21, 2015 12:22 AM

• by DZM admin

  Okay! I'm hoping to have a chat with the scientists soon about some outreach efforts. I can bring this up then, as well. Thanks!

  Posted February 23, 2015 5:29 PM

• by vjbakker scientist

  Hi all -- Thanks for always thinking about how to optimize data collection. We love that.

  One of our interests with the CW data is discerning dominance hierarchies. The more dominant birds have first access to the carcass (if they chose to claim it). Dominance is clearly linked to age. Here's a great example of a mature adult who has clearly eaten and left the carcass with a full crop while immature birds are still waiting for access: http://talk.condorwatch.org/#/subjects/ACW00012pv. Another with immatures waiting for adults: http://talk.condorwatch.org/#/subjects/ACW00013ck. But Age is not the only factor governing dominance. Some of it is inner chutzpah.

  This is interesting for many reasons, including a few that pertain to lead exposure risk. First, the standing hypothesis is that dominant birds should have a higher lead exposure risk because the best access to the edible parts of the carcass is often through the bullet entry wound. Birds with first dibs are thus more likely to ingest lead fragments. We are observing feeding at clear carcasses, but we assume the same condor "table manners" would apply to wild foraged carcasses including lead-contaminated carcasses. Another reason dominance is interesting is anecdotal observations that lead poisoned birds appear to drop in status in the dominance hierarchy. That is, they appear to have difficulty holding their position. If we can confirm this, it would be a great non-intrusive way to identify individuals that need attention.

  So that's the back story on why it is of interest to us whether birds have eaten or are waiting to eat. Myra is right that we decided we could in many cases deduce whether an individual had eaten based on a time series of observations, and that this information was likely more reliable than crop observations, which can be tricky. And I think DZM is right that it is good to minimize how much we are asking CW volunteers to do for each classification. This site already asks for quite a bit.

  So to conclude...... I think that we shouldn't start hashtagging crop. #crop observations would be difficult to interpret because we wouldn't know which bird they applied to if there are multiple individuals in a frame. Also, the absence of #crop will not mean no crop, merely that the user didn't hashtag. We know the approach to hashtagging is inconsistent because users aren't prompted for the info and required to input.

  Hope this makes sense to everyone.
  Vickie

  Posted February 25, 2015 9:04 PM

• by DZM admin in response to vjbakker's comment.

  Thanks for the incredibly, wonderfully detailed response and explanation, @vjbakker ! 😃

  Posted February 25, 2015 10:29 PM