Re: [nfc-l] Long-eard owl or similar sounding species with nfc?

[Andrew Albright]

http://soundcloud.com/user3781125/whoo-cutdown

I heard some more, distant single calls.  I pasted them together.
The actual invididual calls were spread out over at total time of 1.5
hrs.

Also, we do have tons of deer in the area but are miles from any cattle.

And listening to it again with them spliced together, Mourning Dove
just popped into my head - especially with the modulation of pitches.
 Has anyone ever heard them call with a single call at 2:00am?

On Thu, Sep 20, 2012 at 11:24 AM, Benjamin Van Doren
 wrote:
> Andrew -
>
> A year or two ago I recorded a series of LEOW-like sounds that sounded decent 
> but not exactly right for this species. This was during late August I think. 
> They were spaced much closer together (every 10-15 s), and varied a lot in 
> pitch and tone. I may have posted a recording to this list, I'm not sure. At 
> any rate, the consensus seemed to be that they were likely not of avian 
> origin. Maybe deer? I'm not familiar with all the mammalian options.
>
> Maybe it would be interesting to compare our recordings.
>
> Of course, could be that you have a real Long-eared.
>
> Does anyone know how often LEOW calls outside of the breeding season?
>
> Benjamin Van Doren
>
> On Sep 20, 2012, at 10:53 AM, Andrew Albright  
> wrote:
>
>> I recorded nfc from 2-5am this morning.   Diversity and quantity is pretty 
>> good.
>>
>> At about 2:30am I had a single monotone "whoo" that reminded me of
>> Long-eared owl recordings (Stokes) except that it was slightly higher
>> pitched.  Then ~30 minutes later, I heard the same single "whoo" again
>> except that this was lower pitched and almost exactly matches Stokes'
>> Long-eared recording, which reduces the chance of night flight.  I
>> went through all the owl species on Stokes East Coast and still the
>> only thing that it sounded like was Long-eared owl.
>>
>> 1. Resident owls here are Eastern screech and Great Horned.  I've have
>> only rarely heard GHO from the location I record nfc (backporch of 14
>> yr old suburban subdivision).  Immature GHO doesn't ever do a single
>> "whoo" call does it?
>> 2. I checked ebird and September records of Long-eared owl are very
>> very sparse in the Mid-Atlantic, which reduces the chance of
>> Long-eared owl
>>
>> Any other species that I should check?
>>
>> Sincerely,
>> Andrew
>>
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>>
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>>
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RE: [nfc-l] ID of NFCs

[John Kearney]

In response to Wil and Charles, I do study each zeep call, by sound and
spectrogram, to make the most reasonable id possible. In a number of cases,
and at my current level of competency, I would simply be making a wild guess
as to species. Those I id to the genus level, Setophaga, since all common
zeep warblers here are of that genus except Northern Waterthrush. Especially
weak or poorly formed zeep calls may be classified only to the family level,
Parulidae. The same procedure is followed for other warbler or sparrow call
complexes.

 

From: bounce-65439109-28417...@list.cornell.edu
[mailto:bounce-65439109-28417...@list.cornell.edu] On Behalf Of
Francis,Charles [NCR]
Sent: September 20, 2012 18:26
To: John Kearney; Erik Johnson; Nocturnal Flight Call ListServe
Subject: RE: [nfc-l] ID of NFCs

 

John et al.,

 

For many purposes related to bird monitoring, recording a best-guess species
ID is better than nothing. Assigning a confidence to the ID would enhance
the value, though it will be hard to assign objectively. 

 

However, for NFC that were digitally recorded (unlike field observations),
we also have the option to archive the actual recording of the flight call,
so that any future analyst can go back and revisit the identifications and
make their own classifications. I hope that at some point in the
not-too-distant future, we'll be able to work out some sort of a web-based
database where people like yourselves who are recording NFC can upload all
the clips, along with the metadata (time, date, location, etc.). That would
allow for much greater value than simply a list of what species were
recorded on each date. Presumably most of you are keeping at least the sound
clips of each call you detected, so that when such a database is created,
you can upload them all. 

 

Andrew Farnsworth and I co-chaired a workshop at the North American
Ornithological Congress in August about acoustic monitoring, and there was a
lot of interest from multiple groups to create these types of data bases,
both for flight calls as well as other types of recording projects. We hope
that over the next year or two we'll be seeing a lot of progress.

 

Charles M. Francis, PhD
Manager, Bird Population Monitoring

Canadian Wildlife Service, Environment Canada 

1125 Colonel By, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada K1A 0H3

charles.fran...@ec.gc.ca
Telephone 613-998-0332

Facsimile 613-998-0458

 

 

  _  

From: bounce-65390135-25320...@list.cornell.edu
[mailto:bounce-65390135-25320...@list.cornell.edu] On Behalf Of John Kearney
Sent: Thursday, September 20, 2012 12:32 PM
To: 'Erik Johnson'; 'Nocturnal Flight Call ListServe'
Subject: RE: [nfc-l] ID of NFCs

Very good points Erik. Thank you for your response.

 

From: bounce-65390107-28417...@list.cornell.edu
[mailto:bounce-65390107-28417...@list.cornell.edu] On Behalf Of Erik Johnson
Sent: September 20, 2012 13:26
To: Nocturnal Flight Call ListServe
Subject: Re: [nfc-l] ID of NFCs

 

John, I recall a post on this list serve a few years back (Mike Lanzone in
PA?) where it was mentioned that Savannah Sparrows were a common NFC, but
were rarely encountered on the ground.  I suspect given the diversity of
habitats that our migrants use, it would be really tricky to make direct
comparisons because your ground counts are so dependent on the habitat you
are in.  But it might work for certain species that you sample well on the
ground, as you say.  And of course, something like eBird that compiles
observations across sites (and skill levels, and all the other biases of
bird watching), starts to get at a more regional picture of what is expected
when.  I like the idea of probabilistic identification (and FYI, Ted Floyd
blogged about this on his ABA blog a couple months back - interesting
concept).  Maybe eBird contains the "prior" that one needs to generate
probabilities around flight call complex "identification"?

 

Erik Johnson

S Lafayette, LA

ejohn33 AT lsu.edu

ejohnson AT audubon.org

 

 

 On Thu, Sep 20, 2012 at 11:07 AM, John Kearney
 wrote:

The discussion today reminds me of a similar train of thought that I've been
pondering lately. Namely, in today's world of birding and ornithology, we
require a high of degree of certainty when it comes to documenting the
classification of our observations to the species level. Basically,
photographic proof has become almost essential for rare species. When it
comes to night flight calls, the certitude of species identification becomes
very problematic. I am concerned that we might apply similar standards to
NFC identification as to bird observations.  Should we rather think of NFC
IDs more in terms of probabilities and error bars than certitude? I
personally feel this approach is worth pursuing if we wish to make more of a
contribution to bird migration and aeroecology. For example, where I in live
in Nova Scotia, the "zeep" warblers can be boiled down to about 6 species
that are difficult to identify. Thus while I might not be able to

RE: [nfc-l] ID of NFCs

[Francis,Charles [NCR]]

John et al.,
 
For many purposes related to bird monitoring, recording a best-guess
species ID is better than nothing. Assigning a confidence to the ID
would enhance the value, though it will be hard to assign objectively. 
 
However, for NFC that were digitally recorded (unlike field
observations), we also have the option to archive the actual recording
of the flight call, so that any future analyst can go back and revisit
the identifications and make their own classifications. I hope that at
some point in the not-too-distant future, we'll be able to work out some
sort of a web-based database where people like yourselves who are
recording NFC can upload all the clips, along with the metadata (time,
date, location, etc.). That would allow for much greater value than
simply a list of what species were recorded on each date. Presumably
most of you are keeping at least the sound clips of each call you
detected, so that when such a database is created, you can upload them
all. 
 
Andrew Farnsworth and I co-chaired a workshop at the North American
Ornithological Congress in August about acoustic monitoring, and there
was a lot of interest from multiple groups to create these types of data
bases, both for flight calls as well as other types of recording
projects. We hope that over the next year or two we'll be seeing a lot
of progress.
 
Charles M. Francis, PhD
Manager, Bird Population Monitoring

Canadian Wildlife Service, Environment Canada 

1125 Colonel By, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada K1A 0H3
charles.fran...@ec.gc.ca  
Telephone 613-998-0332
Facsimile 613-998-0458
 



From: bounce-65390135-25320...@list.cornell.edu
[mailto:bounce-65390135-25320...@list.cornell.edu] On Behalf Of John
Kearney
Sent: Thursday, September 20, 2012 12:32 PM
To: 'Erik Johnson'; 'Nocturnal Flight Call ListServe'
Subject: RE: [nfc-l] ID of NFCs



Very good points Erik. Thank you for your response.

 

From: bounce-65390107-28417...@list.cornell.edu
[mailto:bounce-65390107-28417...@list.cornell.edu] On Behalf Of Erik
Johnson
Sent: September 20, 2012 13:26
To: Nocturnal Flight Call ListServe
Subject: Re: [nfc-l] ID of NFCs

 

John, I recall a post on this list serve a few years back (Mike Lanzone
in PA?) where it was mentioned that Savannah Sparrows were a common NFC,
but were rarely encountered on the ground.  I suspect given the
diversity of habitats that our migrants use, it would be really tricky
to make direct comparisons because your ground counts are so dependent
on the habitat you are in.  But it might work for certain species that
you sample well on the ground, as you say.  And of course, something
like eBird that compiles observations across sites (and skill levels,
and all the other biases of bird watching), starts to get at a more
regional picture of what is expected when.  I like the idea of
probabilistic identification (and FYI, Ted Floyd blogged about this on
his ABA blog a couple months back - interesting concept).  Maybe eBird
contains the "prior" that one needs to generate probabilities around
flight call complex "identification"?

 

Erik Johnson

S Lafayette, LA

ejohn33 AT lsu.edu

ejohnson AT audubon.org

 

 

 On Thu, Sep 20, 2012 at 11:07 AM, John Kearney
 wrote:

The discussion today reminds me of a similar train of thought
that I've been pondering lately. Namely, in today's world of birding and
ornithology, we require a high of degree of certainty when it comes to
documenting the classification of our observations to the species level.
Basically, photographic proof has become almost essential for rare
species. When it comes to night flight calls, the certitude of species
identification becomes very problematic. I am concerned that we might
apply similar standards to NFC identification as to bird observations.
Should we rather think of NFC IDs more in terms of probabilities and
error bars than certitude? I personally feel this approach is worth
pursuing if we wish to make more of a contribution to bird migration and
aeroecology. For example, where I in live in Nova Scotia, the "zeep"
warblers can be boiled down to about 6 species that are difficult to
identify. Thus while I might not be able to distinguish the NFC of a
Yellow Warbler from a Blackpoll Warbler, it is very probable that this
type of call in early August is a Yellow Warbler and such a call in
early September is a Blackpoll Warbler. This breakdown of all the zeep
warblers into probability categories is much more useful, I believe, for
understanding regional migration patterns than having them all lumped as
zeep warblers because we can't be certain of their identification to the
species level. How we calculate these probabilities is another question.
I have been doing stop-over transects in areas close to a recording
station. Although this analysis is not completed, I sense that there may
be some interesting correlations to be made between the species
composition of nocturnal 

Re: [nfc-l] ID of NFCs

[Wil Hershberger]

John,
Have you noticed any fine differences between the zeep calls that you are 
getting in early August vs early September? Your data set might be worth a 
closer look to see if there are any commonly seen differences.


Wil Hershberger
Nature Images and Sounds, LLC
Hedgesville, WV
The Songs of Insects
My Blog










On Sep 20, 2012, at 12:07 PM, John Kearney wrote:

> The discussion today reminds me of a similar train of thought that I’ve been 
> pondering lately. Namely, in today’s world of birding and ornithology, we 
> require a high of degree of certainty when it comes to documenting the 
> classification of our observations to the species level. Basically, 
> photographic proof has become almost essential for rare species. When it 
> comes to night flight calls, the certitude of species identification becomes 
> very problematic. I am concerned that we might apply similar standards to NFC 
> identification as to bird observations.  Should we rather think of NFC IDs 
> more in terms of probabilities and error bars than certitude? I personally 
> feel this approach is worth pursuing if we wish to make more of a 
> contribution to bird migration and aeroecology. For example, where I in live 
> in Nova Scotia, the “zeep” warblers can be boiled down to about 6 species 
> that are difficult to identify. Thus while I might not be able to distinguish 
> the NFC of a Yellow Warbler from a Blackpoll Warbler, it is very probable 
> that this type of call in early August is a Yellow Warbler and such a call in 
> early September is a Blackpoll Warbler. This breakdown of all the zeep 
> warblers into probability categories is much more useful, I believe, for 
> understanding regional migration patterns than having them all lumped as zeep 
> warblers because we can’t be certain of their identification to the species 
> level. How we calculate these probabilities is another question. I have been 
> doing stop-over transects in areas close to a recording station. Although 
> this analysis is not completed, I sense that there may be some interesting 
> correlations to be made between the species composition of nocturnal 
> migration and stop-over areas within a certain time frame.
> --
> NFC-L List Info:
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Re: [nfc-l] Common August to Early September NFC

[Wil Hershberger]

Perhaps a java based web app that would help to ID calls would be better yet. 
Interesting idea.
There was a good flight here in eastern WV last night. I haven't had a chance 
to look at any data yet.


Wil Hershberger
Nature Images and Sounds, LLC
Hedgesville, WV
The Songs of Insects
My Blog










On Sep 20, 2012, at 11:17 AM, Dan Poalillo wrote:

> As one of the 'beginners' here I greatly appreciate the recent posts from 
> Chris and Andrew.  As I expressed to Chris recently, as a beginner with poor 
> recording equipment its often challenging to know whether I have made the 
> correct ID or if there is another species or group I hadn't even considered 
> that sounds or 'looks' the same.  Having a list of very similar and somewhat 
> similar species would be very helpful.  The information to that effect on the 
> Evans/O'brien CD has been invaluable for me--THANKS!  I also think Andrew's 
> idea of occasionally posting samples sans identify for beginners to test out 
> their skills on is a great idea.
> 
> I wonder also if some of us with better coding skills and a library of 
> recordings could assemble a 'thumbnail' style database of spectrograms. This 
> would allow beginners to more easily compare the different calls visually.  
> Even better might be a database searchable by characteristics.  For example, 
> the user inputs the duration, frequency and/or other characteristics (buzzy, 
> descending, etc) and the program produces a list of possible candidates.  A 
> tool like this would make this emerging science a bit more accessible to the 
> novice (and would make it possible for me to introduce the subject to my high 
> school students in a way that would not completely overwhelm them).
> 
> Dan Poalillo
> Northern NJ
> --
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[nfc-l] Improving flight call detections - and two mysteries

[Erik Johnson]

Rob, NFCers,

We had a well-appreciated dryish cold front pass through during the day of
the 18th, and this is the night's recording that I played with, since I
knew there must have been lots more detections the filter had missed.  So I
played around with the noise removal filter in Audacity to see if I could
improve thrush-x and tseep-x's ability to detect bursts of sound.  It
tripled the number of noise bursts extracted, doubled the number of NFC
calls extracted, and added 6 species/call types (21 versus 15) compared to
the original recording.  With my hardware, it takes about 20-30 minutes to
run the filter on an 11-hr file and export the new, noise-reduced .wav
file.  Have other people tried similar approaches to improving detection
rates?

Also, I had two flight calls that have me totally perplexed - and this gets
back into the confidence of identification issue.  I'm attaching a flight
call each of what, to me, sound and look good (but maybe not perfect) for
Bobolink and White-throated Sparrow.  Bobolink is a very rare fall
transient in Louisiana and the White-throated Sparrow would probably fall
into the top 5 earliest records for the state.  That alone has me
suspicious, and as a somewhat newbie, I'm worried I might be overlooking
something else obvious.  Any suggestions are welcomed.

Thanks,
Erik Johnson
S Lafayette, LA
ejohn33 AT lsu.edu
ejohnson AT audubon.org



On Thu, Sep 20, 2012 at 10:04 AM, Rob Fergus  wrote:

>  Last night I woke up with a headache at 1:15 and decided to pop
> some Ibuprofen and tune in to my Oldbird 21c to see what was flying
> over--there was a big flight going on, and there was finally no cicada
> noise, so from 1:30-2:30 I got out my handy dandy tally clickers (new from
> Staples yesterday) to document the flight.  In that hour I heard through
> the Oldbird 21c:
>
> Thrush-like calls: 266
> Tseep type calls: 298
>
> Interestingly, this morning when I ran the Thrush-X and Tseep-X detectors
> for this period, they only pulled out:
> Thrush-X detections: 19
> Tseep-X detections: 72
>
> The total automatic detections for last night were:
> Thrush-X detections: 112
> Tseep-X detections: 511
>
> It is going to take me a while to classify these calls, and I will be
> interested in seeing what a handsort of the hour I listened will turn up.
>
> Initially, sounded like mostly Swainson's Thrush, some Gray-cheeked, and
> Rose-breasted Grosbeak.  Looks like I had Chipping Sparrow, Common
> Yellowthroat, Northern Parula, American Redstart and others among the mix.
>
> Most fun might have been the Red-breated Nuthatch that I heard give two
> quick calls going over at 1:55am, my first NFC detection of this species.
>
> I'm playing with the idea of posting Glassofire screen shots of each
> night's migration, along with interesting .wav files on my blog.  In the
> meantime, here are 63 of the Tseep-X detections from my listening, just for
> fun.
>
> Rob Fergus
> Union Township, Hunterdon Co, NJ
> http://birdchaser.blogspot.com
>
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2012-09-18b 1933 Thrush_001.22.16_00.wav
Description: Wave audio


2012-09-18 1933 Tseep_007.48.51_00.wav
Description: Wave audio

RE: [nfc-l] ID of NFCs

[John Kearney]

Very good points Erik. Thank you for your response.

 

From: bounce-65390107-28417...@list.cornell.edu
[mailto:bounce-65390107-28417...@list.cornell.edu] On Behalf Of Erik Johnson
Sent: September 20, 2012 13:26
To: Nocturnal Flight Call ListServe
Subject: Re: [nfc-l] ID of NFCs

 

John, I recall a post on this list serve a few years back (Mike Lanzone in
PA?) where it was mentioned that Savannah Sparrows were a common NFC, but
were rarely encountered on the ground.  I suspect given the diversity of
habitats that our migrants use, it would be really tricky to make direct
comparisons because your ground counts are so dependent on the habitat you
are in.  But it might work for certain species that you sample well on the
ground, as you say.  And of course, something like eBird that compiles
observations across sites (and skill levels, and all the other biases of
bird watching), starts to get at a more regional picture of what is expected
when.  I like the idea of probabilistic identification (and FYI, Ted Floyd
blogged about this on his ABA blog a couple months back - interesting
concept).  Maybe eBird contains the "prior" that one needs to generate
probabilities around flight call complex "identification"?

 

Erik Johnson

S Lafayette, LA

ejohn33 AT lsu.edu

ejohnson AT audubon.org

 

 

 On Thu, Sep 20, 2012 at 11:07 AM, John Kearney
 wrote:

The discussion today reminds me of a similar train of thought that I've been
pondering lately. Namely, in today's world of birding and ornithology, we
require a high of degree of certainty when it comes to documenting the
classification of our observations to the species level. Basically,
photographic proof has become almost essential for rare species. When it
comes to night flight calls, the certitude of species identification becomes
very problematic. I am concerned that we might apply similar standards to
NFC identification as to bird observations.  Should we rather think of NFC
IDs more in terms of probabilities and error bars than certitude? I
personally feel this approach is worth pursuing if we wish to make more of a
contribution to bird migration and aeroecology. For example, where I in live
in Nova Scotia, the "zeep" warblers can be boiled down to about 6 species
that are difficult to identify. Thus while I might not be able to
distinguish the NFC of a Yellow Warbler from a Blackpoll Warbler, it is very
probable that this type of call in early August is a Yellow Warbler and such
a call in early September is a Blackpoll Warbler. This breakdown of all the
zeep warblers into probability categories is much more useful, I believe,
for understanding regional migration patterns than having them all lumped as
zeep warblers because we can't be certain of their identification to the
species level. How we calculate these probabilities is another question. I
have been doing stop-over transects in areas close to a recording station.
Although this analysis is not completed, I sense that there may be some
interesting correlations to be made between the species composition of
nocturnal migration and stop-over areas within a certain time frame.

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Archive

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Re: [nfc-l] ID of NFCs

[Erik Johnson]

John, I recall a post on this list serve a few years back (Mike Lanzone in
PA?) where it was mentioned that Savannah Sparrows were a common NFC, but
were rarely encountered on the ground.  I suspect given the diversity of
habitats that our migrants use, it would be really tricky to make direct
comparisons because your ground counts are so dependent on the habitat you
are in.  But it might work for certain species that you sample well on the
ground, as you say.  And of course, something like eBird that compiles
observations across sites (and skill levels, and all the other biases of
bird watching), starts to get at a more regional picture of what is
expected when.  I like the idea of probabilistic identification (and FYI,
Ted Floyd blogged about this on his ABA blog a couple months back -
interesting concept).  Maybe eBird contains the "prior" that one needs to
generate probabilities around flight call complex "identification"?

Erik Johnson
S Lafayette, LA
ejohn33 AT lsu.edu
ejohnson AT audubon.org


 On Thu, Sep 20, 2012 at 11:07 AM, John Kearney <
john.kear...@ns.sympatico.ca> wrote:

> The discussion today reminds me of a similar train of thought that I’ve
> been pondering lately. Namely, in today’s world of birding and ornithology,
> we require a high of degree of certainty when it comes to documenting the
> classification of our observations to the species level. Basically,
> photographic proof has become almost essential for rare species. When it
> comes to night flight calls, the certitude of species identification
> becomes very problematic. I am concerned that we might apply similar
> standards to NFC identification as to bird observations.  Should we rather
> think of NFC IDs more in terms of probabilities and error bars than
> certitude? I personally feel this approach is worth pursuing if we wish to
> make more of a contribution to bird migration and aeroecology. For example,
> where I in live in Nova Scotia, the “zeep” warblers can be boiled down to
> about 6 species that are difficult to identify. Thus while I might not be
> able to distinguish the NFC of a Yellow Warbler from a Blackpoll Warbler,
> it is very probable that this type of call in early August is a Yellow
> Warbler and such a call in early September is a Blackpoll Warbler. This
> breakdown of all the zeep warblers into probability categories is much more
> useful, I believe, for understanding regional migration patterns than
> having them all lumped as zeep warblers because we can’t be certain of
> their identification to the species level. How we calculate these
> probabilities is another question. I have been doing stop-over transects in
> areas close to a recording station. Although this analysis is not
> completed, I sense that there may be some interesting correlations to be
> made between the species composition of nocturnal migration and stop-over
> areas within a certain time frame.
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[nfc-l] ID of NFCs

[John Kearney]

The discussion today reminds me of a similar train of thought that I've been
pondering lately. Namely, in today's world of birding and ornithology, we
require a high of degree of certainty when it comes to documenting the
classification of our observations to the species level. Basically,
photographic proof has become almost essential for rare species. When it
comes to night flight calls, the certitude of species identification becomes
very problematic. I am concerned that we might apply similar standards to
NFC identification as to bird observations.  Should we rather think of NFC
IDs more in terms of probabilities and error bars than certitude? I
personally feel this approach is worth pursuing if we wish to make more of a
contribution to bird migration and aeroecology. For example, where I in live
in Nova Scotia, the "zeep" warblers can be boiled down to about 6 species
that are difficult to identify. Thus while I might not be able to
distinguish the NFC of a Yellow Warbler from a Blackpoll Warbler, it is very
probable that this type of call in early August is a Yellow Warbler and such
a call in early September is a Blackpoll Warbler. This breakdown of all the
zeep warblers into probability categories is much more useful, I believe,
for understanding regional migration patterns than having them all lumped as
zeep warblers because we can't be certain of their identification to the
species level. How we calculate these probabilities is another question. I
have been doing stop-over transects in areas close to a recording station.
Although this analysis is not completed, I sense that there may be some
interesting correlations to be made between the species composition of
nocturnal migration and stop-over areas within a certain time frame.


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Re: [nfc-l] Long-eard owl or similar sounding species with nfc?

[Magnus Robb]

If we are talking about the hooting of a male Long-eared Owl, it is rarely 
given in autumn (I've never heard it), but apparently may be heard for a brief 
period in mid-autumn. However, hooting is sequential in this species, with 
hoots every three seconds or so. I'm not aware of them giving isolated hoots on 
any regular basis.

Magnus Robb


On 20 Sep 2012, at 16:24:08, Benjamin Van Doren wrote:

> Andrew -
> 
> A year or two ago I recorded a series of LEOW-like sounds that sounded decent 
> but not exactly right for this species. This was during late August I think. 
> They were spaced much closer together (every 10-15 s), and varied a lot in 
> pitch and tone. I may have posted a recording to this list, I'm not sure. At 
> any rate, the consensus seemed to be that they were likely not of avian 
> origin. Maybe deer? I'm not familiar with all the mammalian options. 
> 
> Maybe it would be interesting to compare our recordings. 
> 
> Of course, could be that you have a real Long-eared.
> 
> Does anyone know how often LEOW calls outside of the breeding season?
> 
> Benjamin Van Doren
> 
> On Sep 20, 2012, at 10:53 AM, Andrew Albright  
> wrote:
> 
>> I recorded nfc from 2-5am this morning.   Diversity and quantity is pretty 
>> good.
>> 
>> At about 2:30am I had a single monotone "whoo" that reminded me of
>> Long-eared owl recordings (Stokes) except that it was slightly higher
>> pitched.  Then ~30 minutes later, I heard the same single "whoo" again
>> except that this was lower pitched and almost exactly matches Stokes'
>> Long-eared recording, which reduces the chance of night flight.  I
>> went through all the owl species on Stokes East Coast and still the
>> only thing that it sounded like was Long-eared owl.
>> 
>> 1. Resident owls here are Eastern screech and Great Horned.  I've have
>> only rarely heard GHO from the location I record nfc (backporch of 14
>> yr old suburban subdivision).  Immature GHO doesn't ever do a single
>> "whoo" call does it?
>> 2. I checked ebird and September records of Long-eared owl are very
>> very sparse in the Mid-Atlantic, which reduces the chance of
>> Long-eared owl
>> 
>> Any other species that I should check?
>> 
>> Sincerely,
>> Andrew
>> 
>> --
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>> 
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>> http://ebird.org/content/ebird/
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Re: [nfc-l] Long-eard owl or similar sounding species with nfc?

[Benjamin Van Doren]

Andrew -

A year or two ago I recorded a series of LEOW-like sounds that sounded decent 
but not exactly right for this species. This was during late August I think. 
They were spaced much closer together (every 10-15 s), and varied a lot in 
pitch and tone. I may have posted a recording to this list, I'm not sure. At 
any rate, the consensus seemed to be that they were likely not of avian origin. 
Maybe deer? I'm not familiar with all the mammalian options. 

Maybe it would be interesting to compare our recordings. 

Of course, could be that you have a real Long-eared.

Does anyone know how often LEOW calls outside of the breeding season?

Benjamin Van Doren

On Sep 20, 2012, at 10:53 AM, Andrew Albright  wrote:

> I recorded nfc from 2-5am this morning.   Diversity and quantity is pretty 
> good.
> 
> At about 2:30am I had a single monotone "whoo" that reminded me of
> Long-eared owl recordings (Stokes) except that it was slightly higher
> pitched.  Then ~30 minutes later, I heard the same single "whoo" again
> except that this was lower pitched and almost exactly matches Stokes'
> Long-eared recording, which reduces the chance of night flight.  I
> went through all the owl species on Stokes East Coast and still the
> only thing that it sounded like was Long-eared owl.
> 
> 1. Resident owls here are Eastern screech and Great Horned.  I've have
> only rarely heard GHO from the location I record nfc (backporch of 14
> yr old suburban subdivision).  Immature GHO doesn't ever do a single
> "whoo" call does it?
> 2. I checked ebird and September records of Long-eared owl are very
> very sparse in the Mid-Atlantic, which reduces the chance of
> Long-eared owl
> 
> Any other species that I should check?
> 
> Sincerely,
> Andrew
> 
> --
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Re: [nfc-l] Common August to Early September NFC

[Dan Poalillo]

As one of the 'beginners' here I greatly appreciate the recent posts from
Chris and Andrew.  As I expressed to Chris recently, as a beginner with
poor recording equipment its often challenging to know whether I have made
the correct ID or if there is another species or group I hadn't even
considered that sounds or 'looks' the same.  Having a list of very similar
and somewhat similar species would be very helpful.  The information to
that effect on the Evans/O'brien CD has been invaluable for me--THANKS!  I
also think Andrew's idea of occasionally posting samples sans identify for
beginners to test out their skills on is a great idea.

I wonder also if some of us with better coding skills and a library of
recordings could assemble a 'thumbnail' style database of spectrograms.
This would allow beginners to more easily compare the different calls
visually.  Even better might be a database searchable by characteristics.
For example, the user inputs the duration, frequency and/or other
characteristics (buzzy, descending, etc) and the program produces a list of
possible candidates.  A tool like this would make this emerging science a
bit more accessible to the novice (and would make it possible for me to
introduce the subject to my high school students in a way that would not
completely overwhelm them).

Dan Poalillo
Northern NJ

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[nfc-l] Hunterdon NJ night flight 19-20 September 2012

[Rob Fergus]

Last night I woke up with a headache at 1:15 and decided to pop some Ibuprofen 
and tune in to my Oldbird 21c to see what was flying over--there was a big 
flight going on, and there was finally no cicada noise, so from 1:30-2:30 I got 
out my handy dandy tally clickers (new from Staples yesterday) to document the 
flight.  In that hour I heard through the Oldbird 21c:
Thrush-like calls: 266Tseep type calls: 298
Interestingly, this morning when I ran the Thrush-X and Tseep-X detectors for 
this period, they only pulled out:Thrush-X detections: 19Tseep-X detections: 72
The total automatic detections for last night were:Thrush-X detections: 
112Tseep-X detections: 511
It is going to take me a while to classify these calls, and I will be 
interested in seeing what a handsort of the hour I listened will turn up.
Initially, sounded like mostly Swainson's Thrush, some Gray-cheeked, and 
Rose-breasted Grosbeak.  Looks like I had Chipping Sparrow, Common 
Yellowthroat, Northern Parula, American Redstart and others among the mix. 
Most fun might have been the Red-breated Nuthatch that I heard give two quick 
calls going over at 1:55am, my first NFC detection of this species.
I'm playing with the idea of posting Glassofire screen shots of each night's 
migration, along with interesting .wav files on my blog.  In the meantime, here 
are 63 of the Tseep-X detections from my listening, just for fun.

Rob Fergus 

Union Township, Hunterdon Co, NJ
http://birdchaser.blogspot.com 
  
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[nfc-l] Long-eard owl or similar sounding species with nfc?

[Andrew Albright]

I recorded nfc from 2-5am this morning.   Diversity and quantity is pretty good.

At about 2:30am I had a single monotone "whoo" that reminded me of
Long-eared owl recordings (Stokes) except that it was slightly higher
pitched.  Then ~30 minutes later, I heard the same single "whoo" again
except that this was lower pitched and almost exactly matches Stokes'
Long-eared recording, which reduces the chance of night flight.  I
went through all the owl species on Stokes East Coast and still the
only thing that it sounded like was Long-eared owl.

1. Resident owls here are Eastern screech and Great Horned.  I've have
only rarely heard GHO from the location I record nfc (backporch of 14
yr old suburban subdivision).  Immature GHO doesn't ever do a single
"whoo" call does it?
2. I checked ebird and September records of Long-eared owl are very
very sparse in the Mid-Atlantic, which reduces the chance of
Long-eared owl

Any other species that I should check?

Sincerely,
Andrew

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Re: [nfc-l] Common August to Early September NFC

[Christopher T. Tessaglia-Hymes]

Perhaps, better yet, might be for people to contribute known NFC's whenever 
they can and, on top of that, to pull together a periodic NFC quiz, similar to 
the ABA Online Bird Photo Quizzes.

Sincerely,
Chris T-H

On Sep 20, 2012, at 8:31 AM, Andrew Albright wrote:

I'd add that it would be interesting if people want to post nfc's for
beginners to identify, to do so for 1-2 days without providing
identfication.  Then the beginner can try to figure it out and after
1-2 days the experienced nfc'er can indicate what the species is.

Also, is the list of birds in table 1
(http://birds.cornell.edu/pifcapemay/evans_rosenberg.htm) the commonly
agreed-upon list of distinguishable (from each other) night flight
calls? And is a distinction made between being able to do this by
ear versus needing to look at a spectrogram?

If we take thrushes for example, it seems that we've discussed the
possibility of some overlap between Gray Cheeked and Bicknells.  It
would be helpful for a beginner to know when to try to figure out a
call and when to categorize it as "not identifiable" or it could be
one of a few species.

Sincerely,
Andrew


On Tue, Sep 18, 2012 at 8:01 PM, Christopher T. Tessaglia-Hymes
mailto:c...@cornell.edu>> wrote:
Good evening!

On this slow evening in the Northeast, I am getting caught up on some night
recording data from past nights. Members on the NFC-L eList community may be
most interested in unusual or uncommon species, or perhaps after interesting
trends of more commons species, or are simply here to soak up more knowledge
of this new-found aspect of ornithology.

I thought I'd take a moment to post a more common sound of night migration
on good nights in August through early September. This Veery was recorded
calling at 12:23pm, on 22 August 2012. I cleaned up some of the cricket
chirps to make for a slightly cleaner recording. This was a surprisingly low
flying and loud migrant for the time of night, perhaps due to a low cloud
ceiling.

I'll see what I can do about posting some more good examples of other known
species; I encourage others to try and follow suit, because there are
several beginning or out-of-your-region night flight call listeners on this
eList.

Thanks and good night listening!

Sincerely,
Chris T-H

--
Christopher T. Tessaglia-Hymes
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
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Christopher T. Tessaglia-Hymes
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


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Re: [nfc-l] Common August to Early September NFC

[Andrew Albright]

I'd add that it would be interesting if people want to post nfc's for
beginners to identify, to do so for 1-2 days without providing
identfication.  Then the beginner can try to figure it out and after
1-2 days the experienced nfc'er can indicate what the species is.

Also, is the list of birds in table 1
(http://birds.cornell.edu/pifcapemay/evans_rosenberg.htm) the commonly
agreed-upon list of distinguishable (from each other) night flight
calls? And is a distinction made between being able to do this by
ear versus needing to look at a spectrogram?

If we take thrushes for example, it seems that we've discussed the
possibility of some overlap between Gray Cheeked and Bicknells.  It
would be helpful for a beginner to know when to try to figure out a
call and when to categorize it as "not identifiable" or it could be
one of a few species.

Sincerely,
Andrew


On Tue, Sep 18, 2012 at 8:01 PM, Christopher T. Tessaglia-Hymes
 wrote:
> Good evening!
>
> On this slow evening in the Northeast, I am getting caught up on some night
> recording data from past nights. Members on the NFC-L eList community may be
> most interested in unusual or uncommon species, or perhaps after interesting
> trends of more commons species, or are simply here to soak up more knowledge
> of this new-found aspect of ornithology.
>
> I thought I'd take a moment to post a more common sound of night migration
> on good nights in August through early September. This Veery was recorded
> calling at 12:23pm, on 22 August 2012. I cleaned up some of the cricket
> chirps to make for a slightly cleaner recording. This was a surprisingly low
> flying and loud migrant for the time of night, perhaps due to a low cloud
> ceiling.
>
> I'll see what I can do about posting some more good examples of other known
> species; I encourage others to try and follow suit, because there are
> several beginning or out-of-your-region night flight call listeners on this
> eList.
>
> Thanks and good night listening!
>
> Sincerely,
> Chris T-H
>
> --
> Christopher T. Tessaglia-Hymes
> 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:
> Welcome and Basics
> Rules and Information
> Subscribe, Configuration and Leave
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> Surfbirds
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