11-19-12 Bird Field Note by Debbie Leick

11-19-12 Bird Field Note by Debbie Leick

November 23, 2012

Debbie Leick shares a field note describing new songbird audio monitoring technology.

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Bird Field Note 11-19-12 Debbie Leick

In September, we installed three acoustic recording units near MPG’s banding stations.

The small, portable recorders possess programming capabilities.

space. Acoustic data analysis requires a combination of techniques and software to extract the desired avian flight calls.

An easier detection method uses a simple visual review.

These spectrograms depict sounds from an owl.

Audio review discovered the presence of an uncommon species, the barn owl.

Barn owl observations in western montana map.

On twelve nights between late September and mid-October, the Floodplain and Sheep Camp units recorded barn owl calls.

The similarity between screech calls challenges the audio identification process.

Researchers believe migrating birds use nocturnal flight calls to echolocate and maintain contact with other birds.

We log detected calls into a spreadsheet, complete acoustic analysis on them, and import them into a database.

Savannah Sparow

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