Bird vs. Fish

Making a Parallel Workflow for HPC

I’ve learned about some options I didn’t know that allow for running lines parallel right within the R script. In that article, the author refers to how I was conceiving the workflow as “poor man’s parallel.” 🙂 So, I might combine the newer technique by running the models parallel within the script, and creating an […]

End of Peak Barred Owl “Hooting Season”

While there’s a chance to hear them anytime of the year here, the “best window” to pin down their territory wraps up about now. “In Minnesota, calling occurs in all months of the year, but most frequent in Feb and early Mar, prior to egg-laying (Dunstan and Sample 1972). Another peak in late summer and […]

Great Horned Owl “Hooting Season” Over

While I still hold out some hope, we’re largely past the key window for detecting great horned owls vocalizing. “In Wisconsin, territorial hooting ends in mid-Feb, in keeping with timing of first eggs laid…” – Birds of North America Across the state, birds are probably on eggs by now and thus less conspicuous. Since this […]

Fastest Fitting for Bayesian Models?

Right now, I’m focused on computational efficiency (and thereby speed) of fitting Bayesian models. For my dissertation I used R-INLA, so in this “lab notebook” of a blog I need to jot down my thoughts around some current methodological hangups. Right now, even though it seems to be the fastest thing available, it’s honestly still […]

Valentine’s Evening Luck: Barred Owl!

I was so thrilled to have my 2nd identifiable sighting of an owl that might breed here last night: I saw my 1st ever barred owl in my atlas block! Unfortunately, it was just hunting, so I didn’t have any breeding activity clues. It caught my eye when it flew up to a telephone line, […]

Linux: Fixing Broken Dependencies

Before I forget: sudo apt-get -f install

#NameThatBirdSong (Twitter Sci-Comm Game)

Today’s bird of the day is: ring-billed gull! Birds I’ve covered for my twitter game so far are… American black duck mallard herring gull common raven Canada goose common redpoll painted bunting pileated woodpecker wild turkey bald eagle American robin American crow black-capped chickadee

Considering Planning a “Spring Break” Trip

So I don’t really get spring break anymore, but I’m thinking about heading to the Black Hills Mar. 24-Apr. 1 this year. I want to bee-line to the Badlands (get to Blue Earth, MN Friday night and drive the rest of the way Saturday). I hope to catch some straggling gray-crowned rosy-finches before they’ve left […]

The Latest Bayes in R

What good fortune that I looked up advances in Bayesian methods the day a new task view was published! If you’re just starting with Bayes, they even have packages listed here designed to help you learn. I’ve been using R-INLA and for a few reasons I became curious what else was out there. I’m still […]

A Possible Owl Sighting at Dusk, Finally!

At 5:38 PM I spotted an owl flying away from me! I didn’t get binoculars on it in time, and from the angle and distance it would have been hard to ID even if I did. I want to say from size and shape it may have been a great horned owl, but I’m not sure.