date:20110920

Re: [nfc-l] Gray-Cheeked or Bicknell's Thrush?

2011-09-20 Thread Michael Lanzone

Andrew,

To me this seems more like a Gray-cheeked Thrush. When I was at Powdermill
in SW PA we routinely got Bicknell's in the fall (~10-20/ year). In
Somerset, PA last fall I recorded several too, but have not fully analized
the data yet to know exactly how many. This fall I have not heard any while
listening, but I have not looked at any recordings yet to see if they are on
them, it seems a bit on the early side though. The furthur east in PA the
more likey you are to get them, our costral sites get quite a few and they
decrease quickly as you head inland. To me this call fits Gray-cheeked
pretty well. They can peak at 4.5, in fact we analyzed a lot that did. I
have not done any stats specifically on Gray-cheek calls, but they are
fairly variable in my experiance. Usually Bicknell's jump right out at you,
they are quite a biut higher, peaking above 5kHz, and sometimes nearly to
6kHz. They also drop quickly after the peak before a deceding slope pattern.
Gray-cheekeds can drop fast initially too in some of their variations, but
its not as high and the drop is shorter in duration, also they still have a
more averaged arched slope in the decent of their calls after the peak. The
peak of Gray cheeked in some birds can also happen after the first third to
in some cases half of their calls almost arching to and away from the peak,
whereas the Bicknell's (at least in the calls I have seen) always peaks very
early before the first quarter then decending evenly there after.

Michael Lanzone
mlanz...@gmail.com

On Mon, Sep 19, 2011 at 11:13 PM, Andrew Albright  wrote:

> Early this morning, I recorded a nfc that's seems in between
> Gray-Cheeked or Bicknell's Thrush. I checked through the archives of
> this list and this topic doesn't seem to have been discussed to death.
>
> BAYESIAN INFERENCE
> With several days of nice Northeast winds, I figured that Bicknell's
> Thrush was possible to record in southeastern PA. Pennsylvania doesn't
> have any ebird records of Bicknell's but New Jersey and Maryland seem
> to be all in early October.   Wilson and Watts, 1997 show that
> Bicknell's is possible in the general area, but unlikely on Sept 19th.
>  Same with Birds of Pennsylvania with banding records starting on
> Sept 20th.
>
>
> SONAGRAM ANALYSIS
> Gray-cheeked Thrush is much more common in general and on September 19th.
>
> The main sonagram of interest peaks over 4.5 kHz and nothing I can
> find for Gray-cheeked are much more than 4.0 kHz.
> Shape - seems to suggest Bicknell's from most published recordings
> (except for the nocturnal page on the nfc CD)
>
> In the second set of sonagrams, I made a composite of 4 nfcs
> 1) A nfc that looks like Gray-Cheeked Thrush, especially if I increase
> the "y" axis of time.
> 2) The main sonagram of interest (shown above).
> 3) This call was right after the possible Bicknell's and I didn't cut
> it out.  It was weak but sounded like a Swainson's and maybe looks
> more like Wood Thrush.
> 4) Lastly is another higher pitched call that's seems like it may be
> Gray-cheeked (except for the "M" shape).
>
>
> EAR ANALYSIS
> Listening to the nfc CD's recordings of Bicknell's and Gray-Cheeked
> has me leaning toward Bicknell's.  But this is pretty subjective and
> maybe only because of the higher pitched recording.
>
>
> Sincerely,
> Andrew Albright
> Maple Glen, PA
>
>
> Weblinks to sonagrams of Gray-Cheeked and/or Bicknell's
>
> http://www.birds.cornell.edu/birdcalls/species/Thrushes/Gray-cheeked%20Thrush%20%28Catharus%20minimus%29/
>
> http://www.nightmigrants.com/main/page_species_calls_graycheeked_thrush.html
> http://pjdeye.blogspot.com/2009/02/thrush-calls.html   (Recording of
> Bicknell's in S.E. Pennsylvania)
>
> --
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>
> Please submit your observations to eBird:
> http://ebird.org/content/ebird/
>
> --

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Re: [nfc-l] Gray-Cheeked or Bicknell's Thrush?

2011-09-20 Thread Bill Evans


Andrew,

I like your investigative approach.

Right now the primary evidence suggesting the characteristics of Bicknell's 
thrush flight call is still tentative and based largely on the 
distinctiveness of "Gray-cheeked" type flight calls recorded in east-central 
Florida during spring migration -- a time and place where Bicknell's is 
thought to be the more frequent & consistent "Gray-cheeked".


From what I've seen in my collection of presumed eastern Florida Bicknell's 
flight calls, your call is not from Bicknell's but fits in the typical 
Gray-cheeked (C. m. aliciae) category.  Looking at your spectrogram, if you 
are measuring a high frequency point at over 4.5 kHz you are using the upper 
edge of the time-frequency contour as your measuring point and this high 
point is near the center of the length of the call. You'll note in my paper 
on Bicknell's nfc (Table 1) that the MN birds had a mid-point mean high 
frequency of 4.2 kHz with a .18 standard deviation - and this data was 
measured from the middle of the time-frequency contour (not upper edge). So 
this evidence suggests it is not uncommon for C. m. aliciae to reach 4.5, or 
a bit above, near its mid-point. Also, keep in mind that the frequency of 
Gray-cheeked calls may vary perhaps +/-100 Hz depending on whether the bird 
is recorded on approach or flying away from a recording station (Doppler 
shift).


The evidence from Florida also suggests that you will not find the high 
point of a Bicknell's flight call at its mid-point, but rather near the 
beginning. The catch here is that it appears some Gray-cheeked calls have 
their high point near the beginning of the call ...so there may be overlap 
between high Gray-cheekeds and low Bicknell's in this regard.


Still lots to learn here but your call suggests Gray-cheeked and not 
Bicknell's to me.


Bill E

p.s. Perhaps worth noting that some taxonomists believe there is another 
small subspecies of Gray-cheeked up there somewhere.



- Original Message - 
From: "Andrew Albright" 

To: "nfc-l" 
Sent: Monday, September 19, 2011 11:13 PM
Subject: [nfc-l] Gray-Cheeked or Bicknell's Thrush?



Early this morning, I recorded a nfc that's seems in between
Gray-Cheeked or Bicknell's Thrush. I checked through the archives of
this list and this topic doesn't seem to have been discussed to death.

BAYESIAN INFERENCE
With several days of nice Northeast winds, I figured that Bicknell's
Thrush was possible to record in southeastern PA. Pennsylvania doesn't
have any ebird records of Bicknell's but New Jersey and Maryland seem
to be all in early October.   Wilson and Watts, 1997 show that
Bicknell's is possible in the general area, but unlikely on Sept 19th.
 Same with Birds of Pennsylvania with banding records starting on
Sept 20th.


SONAGRAM ANALYSIS
Gray-cheeked Thrush is much more common in general and on September 19th.

The main sonagram of interest peaks over 4.5 kHz and nothing I can
find for Gray-cheeked are much more than 4.0 kHz.
Shape - seems to suggest Bicknell's from most published recordings
(except for the nocturnal page on the nfc CD)

In the second set of sonagrams, I made a composite of 4 nfcs
1) A nfc that looks like Gray-Cheeked Thrush, especially if I increase
the "y" axis of time.
2) The main sonagram of interest (shown above).
3) This call was right after the possible Bicknell's and I didn't cut
it out.  It was weak but sounded like a Swainson's and maybe looks
more like Wood Thrush.
4) Lastly is another higher pitched call that's seems like it may be
Gray-cheeked (except for the "M" shape).


EAR ANALYSIS
Listening to the nfc CD's recordings of Bicknell's and Gray-Cheeked
has me leaning toward Bicknell's.  But this is pretty subjective and
maybe only because of the higher pitched recording.


Sincerely,
Andrew Albright
Maple Glen, PA


Weblinks to sonagrams of Gray-Cheeked and/or Bicknell's
http://www.birds.cornell.edu/birdcalls/species/Thrushes/Gray-cheeked%20Thrush%20%28Catharus%20minimus%29/
http://www.nightmigrants.com/main/page_species_calls_graycheeked_thrush.html
http://pjdeye.blogspot.com/2009/02/thrush-calls.html   (Recording of
Bicknell's in S.E. Pennsylvania)

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Re: [nfc-l] Detection software for Mac

2011-09-20 Thread David La Puma

Magnus- as Tim said, Raven Pro is probably your best bet, and you can
construct your own custom detectors which mirror the Oldbird ones. I know
Mike Lanzone and Andy Farnsworth have worked out a few custom detectors, as
have others on this list.

cheers

David


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

Teaching/Research Profile:
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Websites:
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http://badbirdz2.wordpress.com

Photos:
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On Tue, Sep 20, 2011 at 9:31 AM, Tim Krein  wrote:

> Magnus,
>
> Raven Pro runs on Mac OS X and has an automatic detection feature.  There
> are some people at Cornell using it to find flight calls of night migrants,
> but I don't think it's as specialized as the oldbird detectors.  If you'd
> like to try it out, you can get a free 30-day trial license by writing to
> raven_supp...@cornell.edu.
>
> Tim Krein
> Raven Sound Software Development
> Cornell Lab of Ornithology
>
>
>
> On 9/18/11 4:38 AM, "Magnus Robb"  wrote:
>
> > Last night was a surprisingly good night for migration here at Sintra
> close to
> > the Portuguese coast. I left my microphone outside for the second half of
> the
> > night and recorded many Tree Pipits, Pied Flycatchers, a few waders such
> as
> > Dunlin and Common Sandpiper, and a Water Rail among others. I was left
> with a
> > 6 hour recording that I hoped to scan through by sonagram, using Amadeus
> Pro
> > because which is good for flicking through very long files. However, I
> soon
> > found that many of the fainter sounds I could hear were being missed when
> I
> > looked at the sonagrams. So I'm wondering if there is some call detection
> > software for Mac, similar to programs like Tseep and Thrush produced by
> > Oldbird. That would save me spending all day listening to the recordings!
> I
> > don't want the software to identify the calls for me (where's the fun in
> > that), just to help me find them.
> >
> > I guess I'd still risk missing some of the lower pitched wader sounds.
> I'll
> > send something about one of those in a separate mail, to avoid mixing up
> > subjects.
> >
> > good listening,
> >
> > Magnus Robb
> > --
> >
> > 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/
> >
> > --
> >
>
>
> --
>
> NFC-L List Info:
> http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NFC_WELCOME
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>
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> 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/
>
> --
>
>

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Re: [nfc-l] Flight calling tonight in northeast US

2011-09-20 Thread Marshall Iliff

All,

I can certainly comment on the official eBird position. This has actually
been a topic of   discussion for us at Team eBird over the last month or so,
but the NFC protocol will need to wait a bit until we work through some
complexities.

We know that the long term "right" way to enter this will be, since we want
to be able to collect both the estimated counts of birds (i.e., Ken's
subjective method whereby he estimates, based on his judgement, the number
of birds passing overhead) and the call counts (a more objective count of
the number of bird sounds emanating from the night sky). We will need to
wait for the right time to build this in.

The other complexity is working through the various implications of how to
show this in eBird. Diurnal counts and nocturnal counts are very different
in terms of what birds they detect and how. High counts for some species
(e.g., Catharus, cuckoos) can be hugely different, while some species (e.g.,
Northern Bobwhite, Hairy Woodpecker) will simply never be recorded. To mix
and match these two very different sampling methods would certainly confuse
standard eBird output (such as bar charts and map grids, which would show
depressed Hairy Woodpecker frequency if large numbers of hourly NFC counts
were uploaded) if nothing were done to account for the differences.

So, while we don't have a perfect answer now, we can promise that all of us
on the eBird team are thinking about this and looking for opportunities to
build this into the system in a way that will best capture the information
and not adversely affect existing eBird output. The hangup is that we don't
want to release something imperfect that will create additional problems.

Thanks for the discussion here.

Best,

Marshall Iliff
eBird Project Leader

On Mon, Sep 19, 2011 at 4:55 PM, Kenneth Victor Rosenberg
wrote:

>  Hi again,
>
>  In regard to the previous discussion about entering nfc observations into
> eBird, I'd like to emphasize that what I suggested represent my own opinions
> as a birder and do not necessarily represent the views of the eBird program.
> Sorry for any confusion on that.
>
>  I'm sure there will be more on this topic sometime soon!
>
>  KEN
>
>
>  Ken Rosenberg
> Conservation Science Program
> Cornell Lab of Ornithology
> 607-254-2412
> 607-342-4594 (cell)
> k...@cornell.edu
>
>  On Sep 17, 2011, at 10:01 PM, Kenneth Victor Rosenberg wrote:
>
>  Hi all,
>
>  There has been much discussion on this topic in the past, and although
> there has been interest in developing an NFC-specific protocol in eBird, I
> have not heard any specific progress on this. In the meantime, I enter my
> heard-only night flight calls just like I would enter any other birding
> checklist. NOTE that I do not use a recorder and am only referring to calls
> that I hear and (try to) identify from my yard or anywhere else. I record
> the effort (time) and enter as a regular stationary count. The time of day
> should flag these in the database if necessary. I enter my best estimate of
> number of individuals detected, just as I would during the day -- this is
> usually pretty easy to estimate except on very heavy calling nights (rare at
> my house). I say "yes" to "Are you submitting a *complete checklist* of
> the birds you were able to identify?" because that is a true statement -- I
> might put many calls into "warbler sp." even "passerine sp." but that's o.k.
> I DO put a comment that these are night flight calls identified by ear, but
> that is mostly for my own reference.
>
>  To me this is not any different from a diurnal hawkwatch or seawatch,
> where many individuals are obviously missed and many go unidentified -- or
> estimating the number of swallows passing overhead or calling Bobolinks
> coming over in morning flight, or almost any other kind of birding where we
> estimate numbers. The variation in people's birding habits and abilities is
> so great anyway, and to me it is far more important to record the what,
> where, and when in the eBird database, than to worry too much about
> protocols. The beauty of eBird is that there is so much data that the
> signals are very strong and these sorts of variations are usually swamped
> out. (I should also note that much of the analysis of eBird data so far has
> relied on frequency of occurrence (presence-absence), so recording an "X" is
> certainly better than not entering at all!)
>
>  Happy listening,
>
>  KEN
>
>
>  Ken Rosenberg
> Conservation Science Program
> Cornell Lab of Ornithology
> 607-254-2412
> 607-342-4594 (cell)
> k...@cornell.edu
>
>  On Sep 17, 2011, at 7:32 PM, Michael O'Brien wrote:
>
>  Ted et al,
>
>  In heavy flights, usually record an x for each species and indicate the
> number of calls/minute in the comment field (for each species, if possible).
> Anyone with better ideas?
>
>  Best,
> Michael
>
> Michael O'Brien
> Victor Emanuel Nature Tours
> www.ventbird.com
>
> On Sep 17, 2011, at 7:07 PM, Ted Floyd  wrote:
>
>   Well! The most i

Re: [nfc-l] Detection software for Mac

2011-09-20 Thread Tim Krein

Magnus,

Raven Pro runs on Mac OS X and has an automatic detection feature.  There
are some people at Cornell using it to find flight calls of night migrants,
but I don't think it's as specialized as the oldbird detectors.  If you'd
like to try it out, you can get a free 30-day trial license by writing to
raven_supp...@cornell.edu.

Tim Krein
Raven Sound Software Development
Cornell Lab of Ornithology



On 9/18/11 4:38 AM, "Magnus Robb"  wrote:

> Last night was a surprisingly good night for migration here at Sintra close to
> the Portuguese coast. I left my microphone outside for the second half of the
> night and recorded many Tree Pipits, Pied Flycatchers, a few waders such as
> Dunlin and Common Sandpiper, and a Water Rail among others. I was left with a
> 6 hour recording that I hoped to scan through by sonagram, using Amadeus Pro
> because which is good for flicking through very long files. However, I soon
> found that many of the fainter sounds I could hear were being missed when I
> looked at the sonagrams. So I'm wondering if there is some call detection
> software for Mac, similar to programs like Tseep and Thrush produced by
> Oldbird. That would save me spending all day listening to the recordings! I
> don't want the software to identify the calls for me (where's the fun in
> that), just to help me find them.
> 
> I guess I'd still risk missing some of the lower pitched wader sounds. I'll
> send something about one of those in a separate mail, to avoid mixing up
> subjects.
> 
> good listening,
> 
> Magnus Robb
> --
> 
> 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/
> 
> --
> 


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Re: [nfc-l] Gray-Cheeked or Bicknell's Thrush?

Re: [nfc-l] Gray-Cheeked or Bicknell's Thrush?

Re: [nfc-l] Detection software for Mac

Re: [nfc-l] Flight calling tonight in northeast US

Re: [nfc-l] Detection software for Mac

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