It was written:
"In practical terms, I have seen birds respond to the cruddiest
recording systems (RatShack cheapo cassette recorder and self-contained
mic). I have seen species respond to calls of closely related species
but not their own. They respond to predator calls too, of course. Their
responses vary according to the time of day and season and age of the
animal and other environmental noise and so on."
This is interesting and true for a variety of reasons.=20
For example, a territorial male may respond to anything that vaguely
sounds like an encroaching rival. It doesn't matter to him that the
invader is hoarse or a clumsy singer, he wants the invader out. A
female choosing the most appropriate mate on the other hand will be very
discriminatory and may respond or fail to respond to subtle details in
the sounds she hears.=20
Thus if we want a natural assay on the quality of a recorded sound we
may not want to use the response of a territorial male to judge the
quality of our sounds!
Best to all,
Kevin Colver
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