I genuinely enjoy reading and hearing the tales of nature recording on this=
list. The following is a simple description, no analysis of sonic range in=
microphones, no acoustically perfect examples and no exotic habitats. Just=
a tale of a Saturday morning in bird land, with no mic, a simple set of bi=
noculars and a willing and ever so appreciative ear. I sent this to my work=
colleagues this morning and hope that all of you wunderkinds of audio -- t=
ruly I am in awe of your skills -- can relate to this joy of simple discove=
ry.
=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D
So -- as everyone under 40 begins their sentences -- last weekend I went do=
wn to Magee Marsh just east of Toledo for what the Black Swamp Bird Observa=
tory calls "the biggest weekend," which I discovered when I got there. As I=
found out, this wasn't just "looking at birds."
http://www.bsbobird.org/
Of course there were T-shirts and swag, techno-lust binocular vendors, men =
in camouflage outfits carrying cannon-sized cameras, Amish folk in plain de=
nim, bonnets and straw hats, bird banding demos with a poke full of sparrow=
s, and also a most insulted and annoyed cardinal who resented being a spect=
acle ... and the people were crowdsourcing the birds, warblers in fact. Hun=
dreds of warblers, of varieties I had never heard of, nor heard, which was =
fun because I know nothing about birds.
Well now I know a little more, but what was fun was after about an hour of =
getting into the mob scene I started seeing birds jumping from branch to br=
anch along the observation boardwalk, and what began with me shyly approach=
ing people and asking, "what do you see in there?" morphed into folks askin=
g me what I was looking at. "Well, it's got kind of a blue head with this y=
ellow throat." "Does it have a black v-shape on its chest?" "Oh, I see it, =
why that's a Yellow-rumped Warbler! Good find."
Just like the old Ranger Rick magazines I used to read in the dentist's off=
ice when I was a kid: be patient and keep looking and sooner or later the c=
reatures will show up.
The audio track of course was amazing, but apart from seeing one specific b=
ird perched above me, just singing Puccini non-stop, which i never identifi=
ed, I had a hard time placing the songs to the actual birds. It was an orga=
nized cacophony of audio pleasure. Go to Soundcloud or the Cornell ornithol=
ogical lab web site and you can hear lots of recordings. [or NatureRecordis=
ts @ Yahoo]
So, for those of you who are curious, here's from memory what I saw:
Wilson's Warbler
Baltimore Oriole
Yellow Warbler
Water Thrush
Stainson's Warbler
Yellow-rumped Warbler
Palm Warbler
Red-bellied Woodpecker
Red-winged Blackbird (duh!)
Parula Warbler
Veery Thrush
Tree Swallow, or maybe it was a Swift
Lincoln's Sparrow
Song Sparrow
Cardinal
Blackburnian Warbler
Robin
Egret
Great Blue Heron
assorted Canadian Geese
White Swan
Old-man Crow
Grandfather Crow
Spirited Young Buck Crow
Nosy Crow
And the Puccini soprano bird that I never found out what species it was,
Cheerio, my Vireos
Randal Baier
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