Last night, I *finally* got my Evans-style flowerpot microphone (Knowles Element EK3029c) back up on the roof (Etna, NY) and recorded from about 10:00pm to 5:00am, as a dry run. Early this morning, I quickly browsed through my sounds, looking for anything of interest. WeatherTAP showed very strong reflectivity early last night to the WSW of Ithaca, NY, but nothing that would dump huge quantities of birds into our local area.
Highlights from the night include: 1 Black-throated Green Warbler (in full song at 10:13pm) 2 Black-throated Blue Warblers 1 Chipping Sparrow 1 White-throated Sparrow 1 Black-crowned Night-Heron (02:16am) 1 Virginia Rail (04:11am) 2 Black-billed Cuckoos (one at 02:19am and one at 04:14am; attached audio file: 120507_16-bit Black-billed Cuckoos.wav) 1 Rose-breasted Grosbeak 3 Ovenbird-like upsweeps (not Ovenbirds) 1 Indigo Bunting There was one call that I find very strange. It is about 18ms in duration, descending; the frequency range is 16.17kHz to 17.99kHz. It is inaudible without slowing it down. It doesn't quite sound right for Flying Squirrel, of which we have visiting the feeders at times, but even those are somewhat audible in the recordings. This note is completely inaudible and there are no other reference sounds around it in time. I'm a bit baffled. If anyone has any ideas, I'd appreciate it. The sound is attached: 120507.023016_16-bit_17kHz Seep.wav. You can use software such as Raven to slow it down and view it spectrographically - I have removed the LF band of peepers and other ambient noise and amplified the signal. Lastly, there was a single distant, but close-enough truck backing up in the silence of the night. I really thought I had recorded a Saw-whet Owl. Upon reviewing the entire clip series, it is indeed a just-out-of-earshot truck backing up. There were very few other reference sounds to easily identify it as the backup beeps of a truck. But, what the heck is a service truck doing out at 03:00am? Do dump trucks really operate that early in the outskirts of Ithaca? Nice diversity, very quiet night, though. I look forward to recording again tonight, even though it will be raining - South winds are in the forecast for us - we'll see. Sincerely, Chris T-H -- Christopher T. Tessaglia-Hymes TARU Product Line Manager and Field Applications Engineer Bioacoustics Research Program, Cornell Lab of Ornithology 159 Sapsucker Woods Road, Ithaca, New York 14850 W: 607-254-2418 M: 607-351-5740 F: 607-254-1132 http://www.birds.cornell.edu/brp -- 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/ --
120507_16-bit Black-billed Cuckoos.wav
Description: 120507_16-bit Black-billed Cuckoos.wav
120507.023016_16-bit_17kHz Seep.wav
Description: 120507.023016_16-bit_17kHz Seep.wav
