[nfc-l] Ovenbird flight song (not call)
On July 17 I set up a migration mic at Thacher Nature Center near Albany, NY. That night I recorded what I think is the so-called flight song of the Ovenbird, which I have heard only once or twice before. I recorded a very similar song on 19 July. I've been digging around trying to find examples, and the flight song seems to be extremely variable among birds. I've posted the recordings and sonograms at http://naturebits.org/temp_1.php I'd be interested in any comments. If it is not an ovenbird, what is it? -- David Martin Slingerlands, New York http://naturebits.org -- 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/ --
Re: [nfc-l] reflections on a monumental nocturnal migration
Here in the Albany, NY area I had the highest number of calls for a single night on 10 Sep in my four years of recording, but my numbers (460) are lower than other reports. That may be because my location is in the Hudson River valley at a relatively low elevation (100m), and most birds were flying high. Also, the thrush detector I've been using doesn't seem very efficient -- it's something I need to work on. At 10PM, the presumed bird reflectance on the Albany radar image extended out >100km. The elevation of the Albany radar antenna is 589m (1934 ft). So, at 100km the radar was detecting birds between 1400 and 3100m above sea level (4500 -- 10,200 ft). David Martin On 9/16/2010 9:38 AM, Jeff Wells wrote: > > We have one station running up here in Maine but interestingly > although it picked up good numbers (600+ calls) on the night of the > 10^th , it picked up more calls on the 7^th (752) and also 600+ calls > on the 2^nd . > > Jeff Wells > > *From:* bounce-6309122-9874...@list.cornell.edu > [mailto:bounce-6309122-9874...@list.cornell.edu] *On Behalf Of *Mike > Powers > *Sent:* Wednesday, September 15, 2010 11:06 PM > *To:* Benjamin Van Doren > *Cc:* David La Puma; Bill Evans; NFC-L@cornell.edu > *Subject:* Re: [nfc-l] reflections on a monumental nocturnal migration > > Hi all, > > Ditto (almost) to what Benjamin wrote: we (Andrew Farnsworth, Anne > Klingensmith, and I) have several microphones out in the Ithaca area > hope to analyze the night of the 10th shortly. We're looking forward > to comparisons with the various recording stations around the northeast! > > Earlier this evening it was quite active in the southern tier of NY, > with a good flight of thrushes: mostly Veery followed by Swainson's > Thrush with a couple of Gray-cheeked as well. > > Cheers, > Mike > > -- > Mike Powers > Horseheads, NY > > On Wed, Sep 15, 2010 at 9:21 PM, Benjamin Van Doren > mailto:nimajn...@gmail.com>> wrote: > > Bill & David - > > Andrew Farnsworth and I have 6 ARUs deployed within the greater NY > metro area, so we too have recordings for that night. Can't wait to > see what they hold (though everything may not be extracted and > classified for few months). I was listening for about an hour on the > night of the 10th and heard many more flight calls than I've ever > heard from my house, so the flight should be interesting to quantify > (and interesting to compare to the Cape May mics). > > Good listening, watching, and predicting, everyone! > > Benjamin Van Doren > > White Plains, NY > > On Wed, Sep 15, 2010 at 8:17 PM, David La Puma <mailto:woodcree...@gmail.com>> wrote: > > Awesome, Bill. > > Might I add that tonight should be an excellent flight for the same > region; the largest since the Sept 10-11 flight. If you find me > tomorrow in the early AM, I'll have a Rogue Northwestern Ale freshly > chilled. > > Cheers- and good listening! > > David > > ps. we have data from several mics around Cape May for that night- so > we should talk about comparing our analysis once we bring in the > recordings. > > > > > David A. La Puma > Postdoctoral Associate > New Jersey Audubon Society > 600 Route 47 North > Cape May Court House, NJ 08210 > Office: 609.861.1608 x33 > Fax:609.861.1651 > > Websites: > http://www.woodcreeper.com > http://badbirdz2.wordpress.com > > Photos: > http://www.flickr.com/photos/woodcreeper > > > > > > > > On Wed, Sep 15, 2010 at 4:05 PM, Bill Evans > mailto:wrev...@clarityconnect.com>> wrote: > > Nfcers, > > I begin by stating simply that if anyone ever substantiates a future > nocturnal vertebrate migration over interior northeastern US (in the > first two weeks of September) bigger than what occurred the night of > Sep 10-11, 2010.I will buy fine ale for the whole nfc listserv > membership at a pub of consensual choice somewhere on the planet. So, > for those who have an ear to hear and an eye to see in this manner, > take note of future fall migrations over northeastern US in case of > cashing in on my offer. I wager, given the rarity of such large > nocturnal migrations in the past 20 years, and the crushing inertia of > human civilisation, that a flight the density and breadth of Sep 10-11 > 2010 will not happen again in our lives across interior northeastern > USA. If so, I will be singing "kumbaya" in reverance. > > As I recall, it was about a week in advance that I began preparations > to surf the then subtley-evident behemoth wave. Allocation of spousal > attention was reduced; the kids welfare rationalized circularly by
[nfc-l] New version of song meter
I noticed today that Wildlife Acoustics is coming out with a new version of their Song Meter autonomous recorder. Among many changes is the addition of a 1000Hz high-pass filter. This might make it easier to use a mic element with a flatter response curve than the Knowles element, thus giving more sensitivity in the warbler and sparrow range. Along those lines, has anyone tried wiring two or three Knowles elements in parallel for nocturnal monitoring? This multi-element approach has been used by some mic builders to get more sensitivity with little or no increase in internal noise.It won't help with environmental noise like the cricket chorus, of course, and might only be useful for a mic placed in a low-noise environment. David Martin -- NFC-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NFC_WELCOME http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NFC_RULES http://www.mail-archive.com/nfc-l@cornell.edu/maillist.html --
Re: [nfc-l] NFC Detectors and Equipment?
I agree with Eric that work flow is a major consideration, and GlassOFire is also a key tool for me. I set it up so that I see 36 sonograms on the screen at a time (2400 x 1600 twps). At these settings I can easily separate the obvious noise and the calls, and I can clear out the katydids and rain pretty fast. Some calls are clearly recognizable, but many are too indistinct to identify. I use Raven to verify the id's. One problem is that the sound files produced by Tseep-x are not all the same length. GlassOFire works well with the majority of images. But, if the file is long, GlassOFire compresses the image to fit the frame size, and the calls are hard to recognize. If the call also is faint, it looks like a smudge in the sonogram. If the file is short, GlassOFire stretches the image. For me stretching has usually not been a problem. There are occasional cases where the file is greatly stretched and it is obvious that it has no useful content. In my view, it would help if detectors like Tseep-x and Thrush-x produced files of uniform length. Then the image size in GlassOFire could be matched to the file length. I still have to work on using the detector in Raven. David Martin At 10:06 AM 8/22/2009, you wrote: >Erik Johnson wrote: "What's also frustrating is that I get a TON of >trash clips - many more than birds clips." > >To be clear, I'm a hobbyist with limited time, so I use detectors >*assuming* it will give acceptable results more quickly than >viewing/listening to sound files directly. > >Unfortunately, as Mike Lanzone points out, Trash-versus-Bird is one >trade-off when using detectors. However, this trade-off can be >mitigated by an efficient tool to sift through the trash. For the >this discussion, I'll say the software detection process has two >major phases: the software detection itself, and then the human >classification phase (trash versus bird). > >Not sure if others agree, but as others work to improve the >detectors, I think a quick win is an improved tool for the 2nd >phase, wheat-vs-chaff classification. > >For example, last night I ran a file through a Raven detector >graciously forwarded by Mike Powers. Examining the results with >Glass-of-Fire, I labelled one sound out of 200+ detections as a bird >(same as when I used Tseep/Thrush against the file). This was >quick and painless. > >However, individual review of Raven detections revealed I >*incorrectly* labelled 7 bird calls as Noise in Glass-of-Fire. This >is because Glass-of-Fire stretches spectrograms to a pre-defined >size, rendering the bird calls visually unrecognizable. So, the >detector found birds, but the efficient classifier was inaccurate. > >Manual review of each Raven detection was accurate, but highly >inefficient: viewing hundreds of selections one-at-a-time is slow >and tedious. The bounding boxes effectively hide short >sounds. Keeping or deleting good/bad selections from the selection >list is error prone. > >Glass-of-Fire is a great format: view page-fulls of spectograms, and >quickly classify them with key combos. A great improvement would be >to present spectrograms without stretching. To use Raven detections >with a Glass-of-Fire style viewer, it would be helpful to see more >sound around the Raven detection. For example, in the case of a >longer bird call it successfully detected part of the call, without >selecting the whole sound. In the case of a short call, it's >difficult to understand what you're looking at without seeing more >context around the sound. > >Regardless, I think increased efficiency during human classification >should allow current detectors to flag even more sounds, catching >more bird calls along with the trash. > > >Thanks, >Eric > > > > > > > >From: Chris Tessaglia-Hymes >To: nfc-l@cornell.edu >Sent: Friday, August 21, 2009 2:09:37 PM >Subject: [nfc-l] NFC Detectors and Equipment? > >Hi everyone, > >In the past, I have not used any detectors when going through my >night recordings at home (Etna, NY). I have collected my sound data >from the roof-top microphone (Evans-style, with a Knowles microphone >element) piped into my home computer running Raven Pro, recording a >continuous file sequence from start to finish with each file >duration equal to 1 minute. The following day, I would browse >through the sound file sequence by hand, again using Raven Pro, >looking for sounds of interest. Once a sound of interest was worth >saving, as an example of a good flight note for species x, or an >interesting unidentified species flight call, I would cut-and-paste >that sound file into a new window and save it with a time-stamped >label, uniquely pairing it to
[nfc-l] NFC Detectors and Equipment?
I'm going to be very interested in other's responses to Chris' questions. This is my third fall recording NFCs. For the last two I was doing it at home, feeding the mic input to my home computer and recording with Easy Hi-Q Recorder. This year I added a second mic at a nature center. There is no power at the site, and I needed standalone recorder. Rather than kludge something together I bought a SongMeter SM1-M (wildlifeacoustics.com). Kind of pricey, but every other approach I could think of added up to the same cost or more. You can set the SongMeter to record on whatever schedule you want. It saves the data to an SDHC card. It provides power to the mic. The mic is based on Bill Evan's flowerpot design using the Knowles element, but I put it on a government surplus mast to get it above some of the insect noise. I've been using Bill Evan's tools Tseep-x and Thrush-x along with GlassOFire to sort the data. I've been working in an unsystematic way to estimate how well Tseep-x and Thrush-x work. It's obvious that they miss a lot sounds, but by far most of them are too faint for me to be confident of the identity of the caller, anyway. I just got Raven 1.3 and I'm thinking of running some comparisons with Bill's tools. Has anyone done that? My biggest problem at home is katydid calls. I can sort through them pretty fast using Glassofire, but it is a pain. David Martin http://naturebits.org -- NFC-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NFC_WELCOME http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NFC_RULES http://www.mail-archive.com/nfc-l@cornell.edu/maillist.html --
