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Worked analysis of owl data

One suggestion for looking at the residual plots is to simulate data that matches your underlying model (and all the assumptions that you want to check with the residual plots are true), then discretize the response into the 5 levels, run the regression and look at the residual plot when the assumptions are true.  Do this a few times, then compare the residual plot from your actual data to see if it looks different.  The vis.test function in the TeachingDemos package can help with the comparisons if you want.

For what you hope to do with this model, a Bayesian approach may work better, you can explicitly model the underlying continuous variable and the rule to convert that to the 5 level variable.  Predicting outcomes or probabilities of outcomes for the next individual (observed species or new species) is then natural for Bayesian models.

Just don't tell my Bayesian friends that I recommend this, I hate it when they get all smug.