RE:[nfc-l] Truncation, Amplification, and Purpose...

[Shaibal Mitra]

Hi Chris and all,

>From personal communications I understand that my comments sounded harsher or 
>more broadly critical than they were intended. I certainly didn't mean to be 
>dismissive of the study of nocturnal flight calls! But the recent ID threads 
>raise some issues that deserve thought. 

As I understood it, people have been using automated methods for sampling and 
recording nocturnal flight calls, rather than listening and recording in real 
time. The potential value of automation over direct observation is obvious in 
terms of data volume and efficiency--much larger datasets per unit of research 
effort. But let's not forget that there must be a trade-off in terms of 
quality--that the automated protocol will probably miss lots of interesting 
stuff that it's not "looking" for, and that more of the sounds it picks up will 
be difficult to identify (due to truncation, loss of context, or whatever), 
than if somebody had been recording the whole night period and listening to 
everything carefully in its context. Against this seemingly obvious trade-off, 
it struck me as questionable for the best minds of nfc analysis to expend so 
much effort and expertise in manually analyzing a very small number of 
ambiguous data points (it was the selection of these particular clips that 
seemed haphazard and ex post facto). To me, this approach squanders the 
advantages that the automated technique offers in terms of efficiency while 
yielding very minimal improvements to data quality. If, as I suspect, the 
motivation for fixating on these particular odd and unexpected recordings isn't 
really so much about improving datasets per se, but is rather an expression of 
curiosity and a desire to learn, then let's at least be honest about how this 
feeds back to the trade-off. My query really comes down to this: there must 
exist some point at which the effort sacrificed for combing out and correcting 
a small number of ambiguous, truncated recordings consumes so much time that 
one might have achieved better data (and more personal satisfaction) via direct 
observation of selected hours of nocturnal activity. 

Shai Mitra
Bay Shore, NY

From: Christopher T. Tessaglia-Hymes [c...@cornell.edu]
Sent: Wednesday, May 3, 2017 3:10 PM
To: NFC-L
Subject: [nfc-l] Truncation, Amplification, and Purpose...

<>

Good birding and night flight call listening!!

Sincerely,
Chris T-H





On May 2, 2017, at 5:46 AM, Preston Lust 
mailto:prestonl...@yahoo.com>> wrote:

5/1/17 -- 10:03 PM


Last night, I recorded some interesting calls - the first one sounding similar 
to northern cardinal. Do these calls originate from two separate species of 
birds, or are they one? And which species? Thank you.


Preston Lust, Westport CT
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Christopher T. Tessaglia-Hymes
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RE: [nfc-l] Mystery Calls

[Shaibal Mitra]

>From my perspective, as a confirmed believer in direct observation, I don't 
>see the value in this kind of haphazard, ex post facto deliberation. If one is 
>using an automated process to detect birds, one is sacrificing direct 
>observation and all of the contextual data surrounding the actual events, as 
>well as all of the potentially accessible data pertaining to one's own 
>as-of-now biases in perception and knowledge. How is that fun? If you are 
>willing to let the software decide what is worth recording, then let the 
>software decide what it is, too. How could that be less satisfying than asking 
>other people what it is and then believing it, haphazardly and ex post facto?

Shai Mitra
Bay Shore, NY

From: bounce-2314465-53236...@mm.list.cornell.edu 
[bounce-2314465-53236...@mm.list.cornell.edu] on behalf of Jay McGowan 
[jw...@cornell.edu]
Sent: Tuesday, May 2, 2017 9:13 PM
To: Night Flight Call Discussions
Subject: Re: [nfc-l] Mystery Calls

Ah, that makes sense. Is there no way to extend what the detector pulls?

The original call on this thread sounds a lot like a goldfinch to me.

On Tue, May 2, 2017 at 9:02 PM, Meena Madhav Haribal 
mailto:m...@cornell.edu>> wrote:

Jay,

If we are using software to detect calls, then those recordings are in 
milliseconds. For example, my White-throated Sparrow call is just 0.34 ms, but 
occasionally it is longer. So at least I can't post  anything that is four 
second long. I too have the same problem of trying to listen. But I depend on 
the spectrogram to tell me what it is.  At least I don't record the whole night 
everything sound. I use Bill Evans' Tseep and Thrush detectors.  But now a days 
I am getting used these short bursts to some extent.

I am attaching a sample.


Cheers

Meena


Meena Haribal
Ithaca NY 14850
42.429007,-76.47111
http://www.haribal.org/
http://meenaharibal.blogspot.com/
Ithaca area moths: https://plus.google.com/118047473426099383469/posts
Dragonfly book sample pages: http://www.haribal.org/dragonflies/samplebook.pdf




From: 
bounce-2314458-53237...@mm.list.cornell.edu
 
mailto:bounce-2314458-53237...@mm.list.cornell.edu>>
 on behalf of Jay McGowan mailto:jw...@cornell.edu>>
Sent: Tuesday, May 2, 2017 8:46:16 PM
To: NFC-L
Subject: Re: [nfc-l] Mystery Calls

Hey all,
I've posted this before, but I would implore folks posting example recordings 
to this list to leave a few seconds of sound before and after the call in 
question so you can actually hear it. With only a second-long recording, all I 
hear is a burst of sound with no time for my ear to acclimate to the background 
noise. The same goes for audio upload to eBird. We suggest leaving three 
seconds, if possible, before the first and after the last vocalization in the 
recording before upload.

Thanks!

Jay


On Tue, May 2, 2017 at 5:35 PM, Preston Lust 
mailto:prestonl...@yahoo.com>> wrote:
Thank you very much for responding. Here is another example. I think lesser 
yellowlegs could be an option. Thoughts?

From,
 Preston Lust

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Jay McGowan
Macaulay Library
Cornell Lab of Ornithology
jw...@cornell.edu
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