Ellen--
You might want to consider changing your subscription settings on
your Yahoo account to receive individual emails if its set for
"digest." Its been a while since I've used digest mode but there may
be less flexibility in quoting and following/responding to
discussions/strings. If you use your IN box to receive all email and
it gets cluttered, consider setting up a mailbox for each of your
list serve accounts and filtering list posts automatically every time
you check mail. Saves much time and preserves components of your
research. Email is not storage intensive on today's standards.
I'm sure you are going to receive some great suggestions re survey,
gender work and using spectral displays.
If my goal was to study populations at sites and to see if I could
determine gender proportions through call distinctions, (especially
if I wanted to study a number of sites at once to look for trending),
I'd look into making some battery powered "drop-off" ambience rigs
that would run for 2-3 days between pick-ups. One can use spectral
time line views to quickly find the calls one is after in the
continuous, "ambient" takes and you'd get all of the vocalizations to
study without disrupting the whole scene as much. You can also get an
good idea of the animals' locations, predation and other factors that
might become important to you as your study progresses. Similarly, if
I'm only going to be at a site for a few hours and only have one
recording rig, I like to sneak in and set-up a rig in a prime spot,
start it recording and leave to study another well-distanced spot
sans gear. As William pointed out, the Sony M10's have better than
average built-in mics and one can add good wind protection for them.
I'd have to do the math, but powered with an external battery sled
and recording at 44.1/16K, you should be able to get 2-3 days of
material per run. If you want, you can pick-up the memory card,
install a fresh battery sled and let it keep rolling. Duration
studies were technically challenging and time-consuming to do 20
years ago, but not so today. Discussion about factors to consider
when positioning such "fixed" mics is something folks can discuss too
should this approach interest you. Rob D.
At 3:27 PM +0000 3/5/10, robertsonep wrote:
>
>Thank you everyone for all of your help. Please let me know if I am
>not responding in the correct format. I just now got an email with
>all of your responses and I greatly appreciate all the help.
>To answer Rob's question:
>I think it is ok if they react to my presence somewhat. I am
>interested in studying the effects of broadcast surveys on rails so
>I will be broadcasting their call and recording how they respond
>(usually from a kayak on a pond with a wetland fringe). Broadcast
>surveys are the main way that people are getting estimates of rail
>population densities and I am interested in trying to determine
>gender from their calls so I can determine what the ratio of
>male:female responders is for these surveys.
>I will note visual behaviors if I see them but it's not really
>something I was planning on (although it would definately be
>interesting!). I will be doing the broadcast surveys while they are
>nesting so it would be possibly to set up a camera somehow to get
>visuals too on what they are doing on the nest while calling.
>I am a little worried about background noise because it is usually
>very windy at my sites and there are also lots of other birds
>calling (marsh wrens, blackbirds, etc). I can get within 1-3 meters
>of the birds usually with my kayak when they are calling although
>sometimes it is difficult to pinpoint exactly where they will call
>from within those 3 meters (sometimes they run around in the thick
>vegetation---so you can't see them---and then call from a short
>distance away). The vegetation is so thick that I rarely see them
>while they are calling.
>The final application of the sounds would mostly be to attempt to
>determine gender differences (differences in frequency would be the
>most likely but I would also look at rate, loudness, legnth of call,
>etc). I am thinking that I will do so by making spectragram's of the
>calls and analyzing those (any input into this would be very much
>appreciated too...I am definitely new to this).
>Thank you again to everyone for the help! I'm really glad I found
>out about this listserve! I'm excited to begin recording these calls
>(I think I'm already addicted!). I recorded a bunch last summer with
>my cheap digital camera but there was too much background noise from
>the wind and other birds to hear the songs very well. I would like
>to try to make spectrograms of these calls but have had trouble
>finding free softward to do so. I tried Syrinx and Ravenview
>(Cornell lab of Ornithology) but was a little dissapointed because I
>couldn't figure out how to get frequency in Hz on the spectrogram.
>Thanks again,
>Ellen
>
>--- In
><naturerecordists%40yahoogroups.com>=
m,
>Ellen Robertson <> wrote:
>>
>> Hi Nature Recordists
>> I am a graduate student at the University of Maine studying
>> Virginia rails and soras (wetland birds) and I am interested in
>> recording and studying their songs as a part of my project. Do you
>> have any recommendations for fairly cheap but decent recording
>> equipment? The birds I am studying call from very wet, thick wetland
>> vegetation. I can get within about 1-2 meters of them calling. Do
>> you have any recommendations on whether t
>> use a parabolic or a shotgun mic? For the recorder I am looking at
>> the Edirol R-09...do you have opinions on this one or recommendations
>> for others? If I did a shotgun mic I was looking at the AudioTechnica
>> AT835 or the Azden Sgm-2X. Any recommendations/suggestionson these?
>> I have also been reading about phantom power and am a little confused
>> about this and if I need it or not. Do you know?
>> Thanks so much for any help you're able to give! I really appreciate it=
!!
>> Sincerely,
>> Ellen Robertson
>>
>
>
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