Dan and NFC-ers, Dan -- thanks for the note. I've found your papers on NFCs very valuable, and I've made good use of your spectrogram table. I found it particularly reassuring to see that you lumped species that I've always had trouble distinguishing. I'd recommend the table from your earlier paper to anyone struggling to get a handle on flight call categorization.
One question about your handling of calls in the dark/light site study: How did you handle same-species calls withing a short time period? My apologies if that's in the methods explanation. I did look for it, but missed it if it's there. Thanks for your work. Laura Laura Gooch Research Associate Cleveland Museum of Natural History On 4/29/2016 6:28 AM, Daniel Joshua Mennill wrote: > Hello Everyone, > > It is nice to find renewed interest in the NFC-L list. > > Thank you, Laura, for posting this information about the article my > research team published in /Condor: Ornithological Applications/, > concerning ground-level lights and NFCs. I thought I would provide a > brief explanation of our research. My students and I conducted > simultaneous NFC recordings at adjacent "dark sites" (no artificial > lights) and "light sites" (sights with a low-level artificial light, > such as a porch light or a street light). We found significantly > higher numbers of NFCs above the light sites compared to the dark > sites; on average, we found three times the number of NFCs about the > light sites (on average, 31 NFCs per night above light sites compared > to 11 NFCs per night above dark sites). We also found a greater > diversity of species producing NFCs about light sites, but this > difference was not significant (on average, 6.5 species or > species-groups above light sites compared to 4.5 species or > species-groups above dark sites). We conducted these recordings at 16 > pairs of sites in southern Ontario, north of Lake Erie. > > The take-away message from this paper: ground-level lights influence > the behaviour of birds passing overhead in migration, even low-level > lights like the lights in our backyards. We don't know if this is > because birds are lowering their altitude in response to lights, or > changing the course of their migration to pass over the lights, or > being induced to call more often over lights compared to dark sites. > I plan to try to study these alternatives, going forward. > > I'd be happy to share my "author's copy" of our /Condor/ paper to > anyone who wants to read it; please email me off the list. I'd also > like to point out that my website has a set of spectrograms of NFCs > (LINK > <http://web2.uwindsor.ca/courses/biology/dmennill/pubs/2014Condor371supp.pdf>) > > from 40 different species or species-groups, based on recordings we've > made in Ontario over the last few years (it is a supplement from a > previous paper that we published in /Condor/, showing that the number > of NFCs is a good predictor of the timing and magnitude of migration > of birds through the Great Lakes). > > Happy NFC listening to all on this list! > > Dan > > > Dan Mennill > Associate Professor > Chair, Biology Graduate Program > Department of Biological Sciences > University of Windsor > Email: dmenn...@uwindsor.ca <mailto:dmenn...@uwindsor.ca> > Web: www.uwindsor.ca/dmennill <http://www.uwindsor.ca/dmennill> > > On Thu, Apr 28, 2016 at 12:48 PM, Laura C. Gooch <lgo...@alum.mit.edu > <mailto:lgo...@alum.mit.edu>> wrote: > > Folks, > > In the spirit of recent discussions from Geoff, John, and Chris, I > thought list members might be interested in this from the May 2016 > issue of /The Condor/: > > > Anthropogenic light is associated with increased vocal activity > by nocturnally migrating birds > > *Matthew J. Watson ^1, > <http://aoucospubs.org/doi/abs/10.1650/CONDOR-15-136.1#aff1>^a > <http://aoucospubs.org/doi/abs/10.1650/CONDOR-15-136.1#n101>* > <http://aoucospubs.org/doi/abs/10.1650/CONDOR-15-136.1#cor1>, > David R. Wilson ^1, > <http://aoucospubs.org/doi/abs/10.1650/CONDOR-15-136.1#aff1>^b > <http://aoucospubs.org/doi/abs/10.1650/CONDOR-15-136.1#n102>, and > Daniel J. Mennill ^1 > <http://aoucospubs.org/doi/abs/10.1650/CONDOR-15-136.1#aff1>* > <http://aoucospubs.org/doi/abs/10.1650/CONDOR-15-136.1#cor1>* > > http://aoucospubs.org/doi/abs/10.1650/CONDOR-15-136.1 > > These results certainly suggest that comparing call numbers from > urban and rural sites is problematic. It's not clear to me what > impact an isolated light might have. > > Yours, > > Laura Gooch > > P.S. If you need a hand with getting access to the full article, > let me know off of the list. > > > -- > *NFC-L List Info:* > Welcome and Basics <http://www.northeastbirding.com/NFC_WELCOME> > Rules and Information <http://www.northeastbirding.com/NFC_RULES> > Subscribe, Configuration and Leave > <http://www.northeastbirding.com/NFC-L_SubscribeConfigurationLeave.htm> > *Archives:* > The Mail Archive > <http://www.mail-archive.com/nfc-l@cornell.edu/maillist.html> > Surfbirds <http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/NFC-L> > BirdingOnThe.Net <http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/NFCL.html> > *Please submit your observations to eBird > <http://ebird.org/content/ebird/>!* > -- > > -- NFC-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NFC_WELCOME http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NFC_RULES http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NFC-L_SubscribeConfigurationLeave.htm ARCHIVES: 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/nfc-l@cornell.edu/maillist.html 2) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/NFC-L 3) http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/NFCL.html Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --
