Hearing the Striated Grass-wren

[Peter Shute <>]

That's an interesting approach, Chris. I wouldn't have thought of using heterodyne bat detectors, which are relatively cheap.

I just tried it with an even cheaper one than yours, listening to Mallee Emu-wren tracks from the Morecombe and the Pizzey apps, with poor results. I found it worked best with a mixing frequency in the high 20s, but wasn't very sensitive. I suspect that detector doesn't go down low enough, and I was listening to higher harmonics of the base frequency. Perhaps yours is more sensitive in the lower frequencies.

I also tried it with a more expensive digital detector. In frequency division mode I could hear the calls well, but they sounded unpleasant, like flying foxes but worse. In heterodyne emulation mode, with a mixing frequency of 10kHz they sounded more like birds. I think I could find birds with that, but it has a single microphone. Did the stereo output of your detector help you tell which direction the calls were coming from?

Peter Shute

---

From: Birding-Aus <> on behalf of Chris Brandis <>
Sent: Tuesday, 13 October 2020 10:32 AM
To: David Dickson <>; <>
Subject: Re: [Birding-Aus] Hearing the Striated Grass-wren

 

Hi
Years ago before I got hearing aids I used a Magenta Bat4 bat detector precision with some success for Variegated Fairywrens. Battery operated and small, range 15-130 kHz. You have to scan the kHz range and if it picks up it makes a sound in the audible range with 2 pickups to assist direction finding. Once you know the frequency you are looking for it is easier but not as good as having someone with you that can hear them. Even good hearing aids do not help me pick up wrens easily.
Cheers Chris

-----Original Message-----
From: Birding-Aus <> On Behalf Of David Dickson
Sent: Monday, 12 October 2020 11:58 AM
To:
Subject: Hearing the Striated Grass-wren

I have dipped on sighting the Striated Grass-wren and the Mallee Emu-wren on each of my last three trips to Hattah-Kulkyne NP. I use the approach to finding these birds suggested by Rohan Clarke and Tim Dolby, “walk slowly and quietly while listening for their high-pitched calls.” I have spent days trawling through ideal mallee spinifex habitat and heard not a squeak - deafening silence. I would say my hearing is in the normal range for someone my age - 67.
Is there a readily affordable microphone that can pick up the high frequency calls and ‘convert’ them into something I can hear? I imagine that people interested in bats face a similar problem and are able to access equipment that enables them to hear their calls.
Yours
Dave Dickson


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