Klas Strandberg wrote:
> There is a need though, and that is when you want to set up a mic and
> recorder under - for example - several hawks nests and record what is
> happening during the day, over a longer period. How often the adults feed=
,
> for example, or breed. You need the happenings and the timing, not the so=
und
> quality.
>
> I have built a few such set up's, for researchers, and then I would have
> loved to have the modern big memories.
The modern trend with researchers is to have a intelligent recorder that
can sort out what you want and just record that, all properly time and
date stamped. Like Cornell is using. The problem with making long
recordings is you are just putting off the time when you actually have
to listen to the sounds. A all day recording takes all day to listen to
just once, and for most scientific recordings there are many rounds of
listening. There is not the funds for that unless done by volunteers.
And it generally has to be done by experts.
A parallel is in Oceanography. Due to the cost of running a research
vessel they are run in virtual continuous sample mode. Then all the
samples accumulate and accumulate. When I left OSU, their Oceanography
department was 15 years behind in looking at samples. And the department
had only been set up for 10 years. And at that time had only one
research vessel which they had not had for the entire 10 years.
Collecting piles of data is really the easy part in research. All
researchers learn to be selective in their data collection.
For non-scientific recording, which applies to most all this group,
there is even less reason to accumulate such recording. Practice
fieldcraft and get what counts. It will save time and money. Nothing
deadens the enjoyment of nature recording like being chained to hundreds
of hours of recordings to process. And if there is very little
worthwhile on those recordings it's even more deadly.
The recordings I do for science are typically 2-3 minutes long. And
that's often way longer than needed. Even with my short recordings there
is this very dull time beginning each year about this time when I have
to catch up on what I've recorded. By the time I've done that, I've
listened to each recording numerous times, and transferred the files
several times. I don't want to think about trying to do even longer
segments. And then when I'm done the recordings get verified by others,
who have to go through the same critical listening process. Even for
enjoyment, there seems little sense to exceed the length of a CD in one
continuous recording.
Walt
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