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

2017-05-05 Thread Meena Madhav Haribal 
Hi Shai and all,

Our ears are also detectors and they can detect sounds they are familiar and 
ignore unknown sounds or at least our brains do not analyze. Occasionally we 
think we heard something else. Even if we hear the sounds in real time and if 
we don't know the sound then there is no way of sharing it with others and 
finding out what it was. Our brain cannot translate into what we heard as a 
sound form, or present it as a real sound which other people can listen. So I 
think a sound unknown recorded is of more use than just heard. May be someone 
who is familiar with can chime in.


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-2315347-53237...@mm.list.cornell.edu 
 on behalf of Shaibal Mitra 

Sent: Friday, May 5, 2017 8:42:22 AM
To: NFC-L
Subject: RE:[nfc-l] Truncation, Amplification, and Purpose...

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
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] Truncation, Amplification, and Purpose...

2017-05-05 Thread 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
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
Archives:
The Mail Archive
Surfbirds
Birding.ABA.Org
Please submit your observations to eBird!
--
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Please submit your observations to eBird! – http://ebird.org/content/ebird/
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