Final answer:
An ornithologist watching bird behavior in a meadow is engaging in ethology, which is the study of animal behavior, particularly in natural environments. This field is a part of biology and provides insights into the adaptations and evolutionary pressures that shape animal behaviors.
Step-by-step explanation:
An ornithologist observing native birds and their behavior patterns in the meadow would best represent the scientific study area of ethology. Ethology is a branch of biology that focuses on the study of animal behavior, especially in their natural environment. Ethologists try to understand the reasons animals behave the way they do, which can involve examining the physiological, morphological, and behavioral adaptations that animals have evolved to survive in specific habitats. This scientific field includes the study of behaviors that have developed under the pressure of natural selection.
When a biologist records the behavior of birds using video cameras or an ecologist studies the wing patterns of an endangered butterfly species, they are contributing to the body of knowledge in ethology. Population ecology is another related field but is more concerned with the numbers of individuals of a species and how that number changes over time, rather than specific behavioral patterns.