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Re: Calling birds, was speakers for iPod

Subject: Re: Calling birds, was speakers for iPod
From: Paul Coopmans <>
Date: Tue, 25 Oct 2005 11:01:35
Lou and others,

Calling in birds is done all the time on international birding tours, and
if done sensibly should cause no harm. No one has ever been able to
demonstrate otherwise.

I'm sure one can still argue against it, but perhaps it is a small price to
pay for the enormous benefits the international birding tours have brought =
to:

1. our knowledge of bird distributions

2. our knowledge of bird sounds; often the bird tour leaders are the ones
who get the first recording of a species or new types of vocalization from
a species; moreover the identity of the species has often been revealed by
calling it in

3. opening the eyes of local people in favor of conserving habitats

There is very little if no funding available for people to go sound
recording in e.g. the Neotropics, and if it weren't for these birding tours
our knowledge on the bird sounds today would be far more scant.

In addition, sensible playback is often used for bird inventory purposes.

Best regards, Paul


At 08:33 25-10-05 -0700, you wrote:
>
>CALLING them in??? I thought the entire point was getting them in their
>natural habitat, not calling them like duck hunters!
>
>Sorry, I am into soundscapes, and creatures as part of it, not into
>birds or other species in specific, and the idea of luring them sounds
>a bit creepy to me. Like the new squid photos, where the Japanese
>"scientists" used lethal grappling hooks baited with fish to snag the
>animal, and took pictures for five hours until it ripped off its
>feeding arm to escape... Sorry if that is gory but it relates! What do
>they think when they find they have been tricked? Do they have distinct
>scolding or disappointment cries?
>
>I apologize if this is normal for birders, but I am shocked! Are
>"expensive" birding trips like eco-tourism? Hunting, only with cameras?
>My idealistic California sensibilities imagines complete
>harmlessness... and going to them, not drawing them to you. I also
>imagine some other bird recordist catching the sounds of your lures as
>some exotic species, only to find it is a duck call!
>
><L>
>
>Lou Judson =95 Intuitive Audio
>415-883-2689
>
>On Oct 25, 2005, at 8:22 AM, Chuck B wrote:
>
>>     I've seen some pretty "bad" equipment that works great for calling
>> in birds. I have a  friend who went on an expensive birding trip where
>> the leader used a cheap Radio Shack cassette recorder with a built-in
>> mic ($40? $30?). The question is, what is suitable for scientific
>> research and/or making recordings that please human beings? *Those* are
>> the expensive categories.
>
>
>
>"Microphones are not ears,
>Loudspeakers are not birds,
>A listening room is not nature."
>Klas Strandberg
>Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>--------------------------------------------------------------------------=
---
>"Un servicio de Megadatos - Ecuanet, en telecomunicaciones nosotros lo
hacemos posible"
>Escaneado por IMSS Trend Micro Enterprise Protection Strategy
>
>



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