Hi Marty and Bernie
Thanks for the posts about recording plants, it sounds fascinating! I
would love to build something like that sometimes, but am not so very
technical and have no tools either. But would love to try sometimes when I
have time.
This year I was recording a Brown creeper build a nest. She always would
land a little lower than where her nest was and then creep up. I was fairly
close to her. I could hear her landing on the tree, soft sharp noise (dont
know how to explain the sound) then as she crept up the bark, depending on
the bark surrounding it produced scratchy sounds of varying intensities,
that was fascinating. But I was also wondering how the insects that live
under bark have evolved to such sounds. Would they know that a bird is
creeping up the tree and would hide further deeper into the bark? I would
love to observe behavior of creepers if they have some other counter
evolutionary behaviors.
Meena
At 09:46 AM 12/10/2006, you wrote:
>There are 3 messages in this issue.
>
>Topics in this digest:
>
>1a. Re: Sound files - Robert Bateman Gettoknow Program
> From: Marty Michener
>1b. Re: Sound files - Robert Bateman Gettoknow Program
> From: Wild Sanctuary
>
>1a. Re: Sound files - Robert Bateman Gettoknow Program
> Posted by: "Marty Michener" enjoybirds
> Date: Sat Dec 9, 2006 7:42 am ((PST))
>
>At 01:01 AM 12/9/2006, you wrote:
> >Hello!
> >I want to record the sound of Red Palm weevil. The larvae infest the trunk
> >of date palm. They feed inside the trunk and produce a feeble sound that
> >can not be heard from outside.
> >There is some costly equipment to record it. www.laartech.biz
> >I would like to know if there is some other way to record these feeble
> >signals.
> >
> >Hope to receive some reply from the members.
> >
> >Thanks.
> >
> >Dr. Abdul Rauf
> >Entomologist
>
>Dear Dr. Rauf:
>
>An old phonograph cartridge is the weapon of choice in recording tiny
>vibrations in trees. I used them to do just that in the 1960's and I hope
>you can find them inexpensively still. The cartridge needs to be mounted on
>a small metal weight and the two then suspended by some foam from actually
>touching the tree. The sound is conveyed from the dense inner tree wood to
>the cartridge by a BRASS screw of suitable thickness and length (the
>velocity of sound in brass almost exactly matches that in many hard woods,
>and so produces no loss from a shift in elastic impedance).
>
>I mount the 3 inch by 6 inch sheet of copper on the tree with a rubber
>inner tube sandwiched between, as a sound deadener and three screws through
>both into the tree.
>On the copper piece, I glue some foam, then glue the cartridge and metal
>mount onto the foam, so it is supported by, but cannot receive much
>vibration from, the tree or copper sheet.
>
>Under the place where the needle would be, there is a pre-drilled 1/2 inch
>hole in the copper (but not the inner tube), and the brass screw I
>mentioned, going well beyond what bark there is (or leaf petiole bases in
>the case of a palm) into the hard inner woody material. It is essential
>that the head of the cartridge rests securely on the top of the brass
>screw-- you will have to experiment with foam and glue and rubberbands,
>perhaps, to ensure a good sound contact.
>
>I mounted over the copper base a heavy copper box 5 3/4 x 2 3/4 inches,
>which I made from some 3 inch copper plumbing pipe, sawed in half
>lengthwise, put over the copper base and the cartridge. The box is held
>over the copper base and to the tree by several strips of inner tube
>passing left to right over it, with each end of the strip screwed to the
>tree on the sides.
>Any vibrations made by an insect --- or a person walking over the root
>system even-- are carried by the wood to the brass screw, out through the
>rubber inner tube and the 1/2 hole in the copper case, directly to the
>needle, and produce loud signal from the cartridge.
>
>Regarding the signal. I found that the output from piezoelectric cartridges
>is very high impedance -- all volts, no amps -- so you cannot just run a
>line from the tree indoors, plug it into a recorder and hear anything but
>static and hum. I made a two-transistor emitter follower preamp with a
>voltage gain of one but it reduces the impedance to a few hundred ohms,
>just what you need to run a line for many feet with no noise problems. You
>still do not need batteries or twin conductor line, as the power source and
>load resistor are in office, with a few milleamps flowing out and back to
>drive the preamp.
>
>I called the study I made: "Xylophonics" -- sound from wood -- it was so
>sensitive, on a 70 ft high Red Oak tree, Quercus rubra, that a 12 gram
>Black-Capped Chickadee (a small bird) landing on the top-most branch
>sounded like an ironing board dropping on a wood floor : THUNK!! Squirrels
>running up the tree sounded equally loud. You could clearly hear people
>walking on the ground thirty feet from the oak trunk. Rain on the tree was
>very loud, as was wind clatter of branches. I didn't, however, hear any Red
>Palm Weevils, or Buprestids or Cerambycids, which is what I was hoping for.
>I expect that wind among the huge palm leaves may be a problem for you.
>
>The box turned out to be quite weather-proof, and lasted many months
>through a New England winter. We were listening to about 10 flying
>squirrels running about on the tree one night, when suddenly there was a
>terrific "thunk" and the squirrel noise immediately increased greatly and
>then suddenly stopped. A barred owl had evidently just missed one squirrel,
>hitting the tree about 30 ft up, and the squirrels spiralled around the
>tree upward and out the uppermost branches then launched into space,
>gliding to the safety of the other nearby forest trees.
>
>-- best regards, Marty Michener
>MIST Software Assoc. Inc., P. O. Box 269, Hollis, NH 03049
>http://www.enjoybirds.com/
>
>PS If you have any digital photos of Phoenix dactylifera you might be
>willing to let me use as illustrations in my nearly-done book on plants, I
>would appreciate your emailing them to me, along with the photo credit you
>would like to appear below the photo. The book covers common plants of New
>England - or plant parts we often eat or use, so dates are clearly fair
>game, as are bananas, sugar-cane and coconuts and many spices.
>
>
>
>Messages in this topic (8)
>________________________________________________________________________
>
>1b. Re: Sound files - Robert Bateman Gettoknow Program
> Posted by: "Wild Sanctuary" bigchirp1
> Date: Sat Dec 9, 2006 8:05 am ((PST))
>
>Yes, Dr. Rauf. The same way we recorded the popping cells in the
>xylem and phloem of cottonwood tree (Populus augustifolia) trunks
>when osmotic pressure of air dried them out (during a drought) and
>caused the cell walls to crack open, die and form rings. We used a B
>& K 8103 hydrophone inserted into a small hole - about the diameter
>of a pencil eraser - that we had drilled into the tree. The frequency
>range of this transducer is from about 10 Hz to 180kHz and it is very
>sensitive so you are likely to get the signatures you are looking for
>by using either this device or something similar.
>
>Bernie Krause, PhD
>
> >Hello!
> > I want to record the sound of Red Palm weevil. The larvae infest
> >the trunk of date palm. They feed inside the trunk and produce a
> >feeble sound that can not be heard from outside.
> > There is some costly equipment to record it. www.laartech.biz
> > I would like to know if there is some other way to record these
> >feeble signals.
> >
> > Hope to receive some reply from the members.
> >
> > Thanks.
> >
> > Dr. Abdul Rauf
> > Entomologist
> >
> >
> >
> >"J. Young" <> wrote:
> > Bernie,
> >
> >You and your resources never cease to amaze me. I bow to you.
> >
> >Enjoy!
> >J.
-----------------------------------------------------------
Meena Haribal
Cornell Lab Of Ornithology
159, Sapsucker Woods Road
Ithaca NY 14850
Phone: 607-254-2148, 607-254-4958
Fax: 607-254-2415, 607-254-2104
webpage:
<http://www.people.cornell.edu/pages/mmh3/>http://www.people.cornell.edu/pages/mmh3/
http://www.geocities.com/asiootusloe/
<http://birds.cornell.edu/cayugabirdclub/>http://birds.cornell.edu/cayugabirdclub/
Current Loc: 42o 25' 44.48" N, 76o 28' 16.90" W Elev 816 ft or 248.7 m
Formerly: 19o 0' 41,65" N, 72o 51' 13.02" E Elev 33 ft or 10m
"Microphones are not ears,
Loudspeakers are not birds,
A listening room is not nature."
Klas Strandberg
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