That's cool, Dan! We have bullfrogs across the road from where I live (also=
introduced species), so when you described it as a "wump" sound, that's ex=
actly what came to mind. That's cool it turned out to be a buoy! =0D
=0D
I can share some stories, but I don't know how useful they'll be for your =
book, April.=0D
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You asked for scientific uses of sound. Here's one that's more of an engin=
eering use: I work at an observatory that was built in the late 70s. Our fa=
cility is beginning to show its age. The shutter - the part of the dome tha=
t opens to the night sky - has broken twice in the last eight years or so, =
and we're still trying to track down what might cause it to jam. At one poi=
nt I was asked to tape microphones to the moving part of the building, tape=
a recorder on as well, and record the motion of the shutter. We were able =
to triangulate several metal-on-metal impacts that way, and used the inform=
ation to help troubleshoot.=0D
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Another one that's work-related is a contact mic project I'm working on to=
diagnose the health of a closed-cycle cryogenic cooler by listening to it.=
That's an ongoing project, though, so I don't have any real conclusion to =
share. I'm learning a lot about contact mics, though!=0D
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Not sure if this would be of use for your book, but it touches on several =
of the categories you listed at the end: noisy, problematic, humbling, and =
challenging to gather. (I'll toss in humorous, too.) The toughest challenge=
I face when recording in the field is me. I have Tourette's Syndrome. I ma=
ke noise constantly. My first several sessions were basically useless becau=
se every track was contaminated with my own sounds. I finally learned to ge=
t some distance from my gear, but the real change for me was when I figured=
out I could do what Dan described: set up my gear in the evening and leave=
it so I'm not around it at all. It took a while to figure out, but it work=
s. It sometimes means recording for eight hours or more and just picking th=
e bits in the middle, but those bits in the middle are guaranteed not to ha=
ve me in them.=0D
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This has had some funny consequences since I'm never around my gear to kno=
w just what's being recorded. In the middle of one of my recordings I have =
a bunch of hikers discussing the movie, Silence of the Lambs. While recordi=
ng waves during whale season, a hiker stopped by my gear to go pee. But my =
favorite was a session recording coqui frogs that seemed to be interrupted =
by dinosaurs. (Turns out they were cows, but I like the dinosaurs better.)=
=0D
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https://soundcloud.com/tnbenedict/jurassic-frogs https://soundcloud.com/tn=
benedict/jurassic-frogs=0D
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