Find Feathered Friends

Inspiration

We wanted to create something to easily display information from the Nature Counts dataset. We decided to create a map because it graphically displays information that is easy for the user to understand. The map allows the user to sort by year, so they can see trends over time, as well as by region.

What it does

This program allows the user to display recorded bird sightings on a map. The user can select the species, timeframe (in years), and region (state/province) to display.

How we built it

We created a function that filters and selects data from the Nature Counts database, and then displays the selected data on a map. The data is selected using functions from the nature counts package, and the map is created using leaflet for R. We created the map by adding various elements to the leaflet map, including marker labels and customized icon markers (using the Birds Canada logo).

Challenges we ran into

Using the Shiny app, we wanted to allow the user to change the input for species, years, and region. Unfortunately we did not have enough time to figure out how to take in this information as a usable variable type.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Prior to this hackathon, we had no experience with R. We are proud that we were able to work with a new language in such a short timeframe.

What we learned

We learned some of the basic capabilities of R, as well as the leaflet package. We also learned that there are a lot of Blue Jays in Ontario.

What's next for Find Feathered Friends

We hope to make the buttons in the Shiny app functional so that the user can change their input within the app. We also hope to increase the capabilities so that you can add more than one species at a time to the map.

Built With

• leaflet.js
• r
• shiny