Andrew Spencer recording a Gould's Toucanet, Cristalino Lodge, Brazil, September 2009. Click to hear the recording.

Andrew's current recording rig: a 22-inch Telinga parabola with a Sennheiser ME62 microphone and a Fostex FR2-LE digital recorder. Note the duct tape, sweat stains, etc.

I’ve been bugging my old buddy Andrew Spencer to send me a recordist profile for months now, but until this week he was too busy slogging around South America.  Now he’s on a stateside break until July, when he’s headed back to the Bird Continent  to take up residence as a professional birding tour guide.

Ten years ago Andrew and I used to take off on birding trips all weekend every weekend, not to mention most days after school.  After I caught the recording bug, it wasn’t too long before Andrew caught it too.  Now, he’s the top contributor to Xeno-Canto, with 2500+ of his recordings online.

I’m pleased to say that I’ve added Andrew as an Earbirding author, so you’ll be seeing occasional posts by him on this site from now on.  I figured it was a good idea to introduce him to his audience before handing him a keyboard — hence this author profile.

Here’s what Andrew has to say about himself and his recording.

I started watching birds when I was about five, but didn’t start recording until after my first trip to South America, to Ecuador in 2006. While there I realized that the ability to record birds in the tropic was absolutely fundamental to fully enjoying South American birding, and as soon as I got back I bought my first recording rig.

In the few years since then I have become ever more deeply obsessed with recording…what at first was something to help call unknown birds in and document unknown sounds for later identification became a quest to record as many species, song, and call types as I could. As a result I have traveled around much of the US and South America recording birds.

Since I started recording I have used a number of different recording rigs, in the following chronological order:

Sony HD mini-disc with a Sennheiser me66 shotgun mic

This was my first rig, and a basic yet ultra portable setup. The minidisk recorder did a decent job in terms of recording the sound, but had several serious drawbacks, chiefly the lack of ability to manually adjust the gain.  [listen to a Yellow Rail Andrew recorded with this rig]

Oade modified Marantz PMD660

I used this recorder with both my shotgun mic and with a Telinga Parabola I later purchased. Of all the recorders I’ve used this was by far my favorite; it had remarkably clean and powerful preamps, approaching those of high-end recorders. It did have some durability problems, and repeated exposure to high humidity in the tropics caused problems with the output lines.  [listen to a Tepui Wren recorded with Marantz & shotgun, and a Golden-cheeked Warbler recorded with Marantz & parabola ]

Fostex FR2-LE

My current recorder, I got this on short notice to replace the malfunctioning Marantz. As a whole it does a decent job, but the preamps are noticeably noisier and less powerful that the Marantz, and the rig as a whole is less durable in my opinion. I mostly use a Telinga Parabola and a Sennheiser me62 omnidirectional microphone with the Fostex, which produces acceptable but usually not stellar results.  [listen to a Peruvian Plantcutter recorded with Fostex & parabola]

I use a couple of different recording styles while in the field, depending on where I am and who I am with. In North America I usually have a small list of targets that I want to record, and if I find a vocalizing bird I stick with it for a long time trying to get different sounds out of it. Other times, especially if I am on a trip to an area I don’t go to much or with non-recordists I will record a bird making noise but move on fairly quickly to the next species.

I tend not to use headphones while recording, even with the parabola. While using headphones does allow one to pinpoint a singing species with more precision I find that it also makes it harder to hear other birds singing around you, and the process of putting on an removing the headphones both eats up time and is really quite annoying. With practice I feel it is possible to pinpoint a target with a fair degree of accuracy and by watching the meters on the recorder. Since I don’t use headphones I also rarely use the wind coat for that parabola, since this allows me to look through the clear dish and at the bird, if it is visible, and pinpoint it without having headphones.

Unlike some recordists I am a big believer in post recording editing. Typically I will filter out low frequency rumble if it doesn’t overlap the target signal, amplify the recording if it is very quiet, and if necessary remove background talking and handling noise. For editing sounds I recommend Raven Lite, available free from the Macaulay Library, and for more advanced editing Adobe Audition.

One thing Mel wanted me to mention was that he has no vested interest in the product or the company; he just thinks this information needs to get out.  With that, I’ll turn it over to him (and sign off again until March, as planned):

SongFinder Review

by Mel Goff

Background

I am 64 years old and have high frequency hearing loss. I spent 21 years in the US Army and the noise levels from computers, heavy equipment and weapons did me no favors. I have been birding with my wife, Jeanne, since a trip we took to the Everglades National Park in 2002. We make quite a team as she can hear the birds and I can do a pretty good job of spotting them. I tried all the latest and greatest hearing aids, and while they amplified the sounds that were within my frequency range, they did nothing to let me hear the sounds from the higher frequencies where the majority of birdies tweet.  I could never justify the cost of those hearing aids when they did not do the one thing I wanted from them.

Then I saw an ad in the ABA’s “Birding” magazine for a product called SongFinder. It alluded to its ability to digitally convert high frequency sounds to lower frequencies thus enabling people like me to once again hear the birds.

Let’s Check It Out

With some optimism and much skepticism, Jeanne and I went into the home office and opened the Nature Sound Electronics webpage at www.nselec.com. I went from page to page reading about the frequency shifting technology, the testimonials, and the ordering information, until I finally came to the “Sound Samples” link. On this page there are pictures of 16 birds that I had long ago decided were mute. After all, I could hear a crow, so why couldn’t I hear a Yellow Warbler? I clicked first on that YW and a voice said “Yellow Warbler” followed by silence. Jeanne said, “Yep, that’s the Yellow Warbler.” Then the voice said “Divide by two”. Oh, my gosh, I heard it! It’s a trick! It cannot be!

We listened to all 16 with the song divided by 2, 3, and 4. Jeanne assured me that the “divide by 2″ option was by far the closest to the real song. The others had the same pattern and cadence, but the lower pitch came off as less than satisfactory.

Let’s Give It a Tryout

The SongFinder. Photo by Mel Goff.

Seeing that there was a 14-day refund policy, I decided to give the SongFinder a tryout. The only problem was that this was Monday, and we were leaving for Hawaii on Saturday. I called the company and I agreed to pay for FedEx second-day delivery. I got the unit on Friday afternoon, just 12 hours before we had to head for the airport.

On the plane I read the manual, then re-read the manual, then read it one more time. When we arrived in Lihue, Kauai, we had to get a rental car, buy groceries, drive to the resort, check-in, unpack - well, you get the picture. By now it was dark and the birds had retired for the evening.

The Big Day

Sunday morning, just after sunrise. We are dressed, we have our binocs and guides, and we head out to test the SongFinder for the first time.

White-rumped Shama, University of Hawai'i at Manoa. Photo by K.W. Bridges.

At this point I want to tell you that the online demo did nothing to prepare me for the symphony of sound I would hear when we stepped into the resort parking lot. Cardinals (Northern and Red-crested), Japanese White-eyes, White-rumped Shamas, House Sparrows, House Finches, and Common Mynas all performed just for me. I could not believe what I was hearing! In fact, I decided to turn off the switch to see what would happen. When I did, all I could hear were the Zebra Doves, Spotted Doves, and Junglefowl that I had heard on our last visit to Kauai.

I am not ashamed to say that when I turned the power back on, I shed a tear or two as the concerto of songbirds once again came through the headphones. I was now finally a BIRDER, not just a Bird Watcher. For the next 16 days on Kauai, Maui, and Oahu, I heard the calls and songs of 76 species - seven of them lifers for Jeanne and me. The endemics: I’iwi, Apapane, Amakihi, and Maui Creeper at Hosmer Grove. The Japanese Bush-warbler on Lower Koke’e Road. The Bulbuls and Shamas at Lyon Arboretum. I cannot begin to describe the feelings I had.

The Good

The unit is easy to set up and use. It is lightweight, and clips to my belt. The size of the unit (4″ by 8″) did not bother me in the least. Adjustments for volume and frequency were easy to make. I used just the first 4 AA batteries I installed for the full 16 days and did not have to replace them even though I did have backups with me.

The SongFinder does not change any of the sounds I can already hear. I still hear the doves and crows and jays and flickers just as I did before. Their songs and calls do not come through the headset and are not altered. That is an important fact, because directionality will be mentioned in the next section and SongFinder does not affect that for the birds I just mentioned.

Herb at Nature Sound Electronics worked with me to get the unit delivered before I left, and even told me that if I had a problem with the unit, he would not be too strict on the 14 day policy since I told him our plans in advance.

The Bad

In actuality, there is no “Bad”, but there are a couple of things I should mention. Directionality is not a strength of SongFinder. It lets me hear the birds, but it is not Full Surround Sound Stereo that would let me pinpoint birds. Jeanne still helps me with that. Also, birds that are far away still sound far away. The unit is a frequency converter, not an amplifier.

I wear a large hat, size 7 & 7/8. The SongFinder headset is not adjustable like music headsets, so the one-size-fits-all idea is actually one-size-fits-most. It takes getting used to, but is something I gladly will adjust to. I plan to try to find a way to adjust the headset or see if the company has a larger model.

The cost may put off some folks. At $750 plus $15 shipping, you may think it is too expensive. But let me tell you that it is a small price to pay for the benefits you will receive. Digital hearing aids that will do nothing to let you hear the birds can cost five times as much.

Conclusion

SongFinder has changed my birding life. I can’t wait to get out in the mornings to hear the sounds of the winter birds. The chickadees, juncos, sparrows, finches, and Downies are beautiful to see, but even more beautiful when you can also hear them. I cannot speak to long-term reliability, but first results have been overwhelmingly positive. I wholeheartedly recommend SongFinder to any birder with high frequency hearing loss.

Please let me know if this review has helped you.

Good birding, everyone! I’ll be the one out there with the funny headset on listening to the birds again - for the first time.

– Mel Goff

1. Another colleague of mine got sick, so I’m taking on two extra classes again for at least the remainder of February;
2. I’m trying to put together a book proposal that I want to submit by the end of the month;
3. I got engaged on Valentine’s Day, so I’m trying to plan a wedding.

That last excuse is one you can only really get away with once in your life, and my students have encouraged me to milk it for all it’s worth.  Therefore, I’m going to send you all my blogging regrets at least until the end of February.  When I return to the blog in early March, you can expect some exciting posts about the calls of Boreal Owls and the songs of hybrid birds.  Until then, I recommend trolling the links on the right to get your fix of bird sound blogging.

Bird recordists don't often use boom microphones like this, but I couldn't resist the image. Photo by Joel Hay (Creative Commons 2.0).

Eric DeFonso has been toying with the idea of getting into sound recording for some time.  On his blog, he reports that he’s finally taking the plunge.

Eric hesitated about getting into sound recording for the same reason I did originally — he thought all the good recordings had been made already.  But I think nothing is further from the truth, and it seems I managed to convince him of that.  Now he’s signed up for the 2010 Macaulay Sound Recording Workshop.

Here’s a quick thought experiment.  Take a moment to think about how many people you know who take bird photographs as a hobby.  Now think about how many amateur sound recordists you know.  The second number is far smaller than the first, of course.

Here in Colorado alone, the photo editor for our journal Colorado Birds has a list of over 30 people he can call on when he needs publication-quality bird photos.  The list isn’t even close to comprehensive, and it only samples amateurs.  Meanwhile, I can only think of six people in the state who record bird sounds at all — and that includes a couple who are just getting started, one who basically retired from sound recording years ago, and one who barely spends any time in the state anymore.

Why are people still taking bird photos?  Why are they still taking up the hobby?  Haven’t all the good photographs been taken?  No, of course they haven’t.  So why worry that all the good sounds have been recorded?

People take photos for many reasons — for enjoyment, for aesthetic pleasure, to memorialize their experiences, to teach themselves something.  All these reasons are just as valid when it comes to sound recording.  A sound recording can snap you back to a particular place and time, right into the middle of an old experience, in a way that even a photo can’t do.  It’s one of the reasons why radio is still alive and well in the era of the Internet.

Just some things to think about if you, too, have been tempted to take the sound recording plunge.

Somehow, I think you can handle it.

Black Scoter (American form), White Rock, British Columbia, 12/4/2008. Photo by Rick Leche (Creative Commons 2.0).

In much of the world, this “new” split isn’t even new.  Many authorities, including the British Ornithologists’ Union, have classified Black Scoter and Common Scoter as separate species for some time now, in part on the basis of the striking differences in bill color between males of the two groups: the American and eastern Siberian birds (”Black Scoters”) have an enormous bright orange knob atop the bill, while European males (”Common Scoters”) sport far duller and less decorative schnozzes, making them less conspicuous in flocks of sea ducks — you might consider them the “Stealth” version of the bird.

So far, taking a conservative stance, the American Ornithologists’ Union has continued to recognize only a single species, “Black Scoter,” Melanitta nigra.

Common Scoter (European form), Brouwersdam, Netherlands, 11/15/2007. Photo by Pieter van Veelen. Used with permission.

Now comes the best evidence I’ve seen yet that the two should be split.  In a recent issue of the Wilson Journal of Ornithology, George Sangster has published an analysis of the differences in male courtship calls between Black and Common Scoters.  His analysis boils down to this: Black Scoters sound basically alike across their entire range, and the same goes for Common Scoters; but the two forms can always be told apart by the length of their vocalizations (Black’s notes are much longer) and usually by pitch as well (Black’s notes are slightly higher-pitched).

You can hear the differences several places on the web.  Here are some Black Scoter sounds from Manitoba, New Jersey (Cape May and Barnegat Light) and from Chukotka in Russia. Note the plaintive, eerie quality to the calls.

The Common Scoter’s mating call can be heard on this page (which is in Dutch)…not many recordings of this taxon are online, and all the ones I’ve found are truncations of the file I just linked.  The notes of the Common male are less than a quarter as long as those of the male Black, and the overall effect is completely different — nothing at all like those long, haunting whistles from America.  (Note, however, that Black Scoters occasionally make some short notes too…listen to the background of the Barnegat Light recording at 2:35.)

Sangster ends his article with the intriguing possibility that White-winged/Velvet Scoters might also show vocal differences in up to three species groups.  But if you think Black/Common Scoters are hard to find on the web, try looking for the other species!  I’ll give a gold star to anyone who points me towards any (legal) online White-winged Scoter cuts besides this one!

Here’s another beautiful Common Scoter pic:

Common Scoter. Photo by Björn Gudmundsson, used with permission. Clink for link.

American Tree Sparrow, 2/11/2007. Photo by Eric Begin (Creative Commons 2.0).

A frequent topic of discussion on this blog is what we don’t know about bird sounds.  Another favorite topic is how amateur recordists might help solve mysteries — and advance science — by recording common birds in their own backyards.  Now, as most of North America languishes in the middle of a deep, dark winter, I’d like to point out a golden opportunity for citizen science — a chance to answer questions about a bird that many people know, but few really understand.

I never used to pay much attention to American Tree Sparrows.  In the places I lived, they weren’t common enough to be really familiar, but they weren’t rare enough to be noteworthy either.  For the first couple of years that I recorded bird sounds, I made no particular effort to record them, even though they can be found in winter with ease not far from my house.  I just didn’t think they had much to say.

Boy, was I was wrong.

In fact, American Tree Sparrows appear to have one of the most varied vocal repertoires of any sparrow.  I’ve recorded winter flocks on about a dozen occasions now, and listened to a good number of recordings at the Macaulay Library.  The more I listen, the more mystified I become.

The most distinctive winter vocalization of the American Tree Sparrow is the “flock call,” described by many authors as a two- or three-syllabled musical note:

American Tree Sparrow flock calls, Yuma County, CO, 12/27/2008.

In and of itself, I find the flock calls interesting, because they sound so different from anything I hear from other sparrows, and because the spectrogram shows them to be so complex.  But the more recordings of flock calls I made, the more confused I got, because it started to look like no two flocks give the same flock calls:

American Tree Sparrow flock calls, Yuma County, CO, 12/27/2008.

American Tree Sparrow flock calls, Lincoln County, SD, 12/13/2009.

American Tree Sparrow flock calls, Brown County, SD, 12/15/2009.

The incredible variety between individuals (and within individuals) strongly suggests that the flock calls of American Tree Sparrows are learned, not innate.  This is interesting and unexpected; as far as I know, complex learned calls are unknown in any of the Tree Sparrow’s close relatives.

Even more interesting is that the limited sample of recordings I’ve studied seems to hint that flockmates give flock calls that are, if not identical, at least broadly similar — while a flock just down the road might sound different.  Will further recordings support this observation or disprove it?  Either result would raise further questions.  Do Tree Sparrows learn their flock calls on the breeding grounds, during migration, or on the wintering grounds?  Do they change their flock calls over time?  If they learn from flockmates, are flock calls a way of keeping the same group of birds together all winter?  If so, why?  What happens when a bird with a different kind of call joins a flock?

At first glance, the situation surrounding these complex, apparently learned calls bears more resemblance to the vocal repertoires of some cardueline finches than to the vocal repertoires of any other North American sparrow.  Unraveling the entire mystery would be a good dissertation topic for some motivated doctoral student in ornithology.

But I’m short on motivated doctoral students at the moment.  Here’s my question: can amateur recordists get a start on solving these questions?  I’d like to find out.

If you’ve got recording equipment and ready access to American Tree Sparrows, I challenge you to get out and make some recordings of your local flock.

1. Take notes out loud while you are recording (not the entire time, of course; it’s necessary to let the birds speak uninterrupted for at least part of the recording).  In your notes, mention the date, the location, the weather, and the species — and most importantly, try to say what you observed the birds doing, and which sounds correlated with which behaviors, and which individuals were vocalizing when.
2. If you’ve got a local flock that sticks around most of the winter, follow it over time and pay attention to how many birds it includes.  Do flocks split and re-merge?  Do they stay separate over the course of the winter?  If the number of sparrows in your hedge varies from 5 to 50 and back all winter, we can surmise that flocks split and merge.
3. Let me know of what you are doing via email.  If people actually do this and we collect enough data, we might be able to answer some of the basic questions about these flock calls, and we might be able to put together a paper for publication.

Anybody out there up to the challenge?

This means the split is a done deal, but it’s not official until the committee publishes its 51st supplement to the checklist, which will happen in July 2010.  Between now and then, it would behoove birders, especially those in the Mountain West, to pay very careful attention to any Winter/Pacific wrens they may encounter.  Here in Colorado, we still have a lot of work to do to try to figure out the occurrence patterns of the two species, and I bet the same is true in many other states as well.  Although there are certainly visual differences, sounds remain a key distinction between these species; see my earlier posts on differentiating them by call and by song.

Meanwhile, if you’re looking for more information on why these two species are being split, check out Nick Sly’s post on the subject from 2008.  It’s marvelous.

Bob Zilly, 1/25/2009.

Bob's two recorders. Left: Olympus LS-10 Linear PCM Recorder; right: Olympus VN-5200PC Digital Voice Recorder.

Bob Zilly of Longmont, Colorado describes himself as a “casual and opportunistic” recordist.  I’m excited to profile Bob in this first post of 2010 not only because he’s a terrifically nice guy, but also because I think his recording style and equipment will appeal to many readers who might like to get into audio recording in a relatively quick, easy, and inexpensive way.

Bob uses the simplest kind of digital recording device: handheld voice recorders.  No external microphone, no headphones, no cords or cables to worry about (unless you want them).  At right you can see his two rigs:

Olympus VN-5200PC Digital Voice Recorder (right).  This thing retails for well under $100.  It records only in a compressed format (WMA), which won’t do for some audio purists, but it really doesn’t distort bird sounds either, as far as I can tell.  For someone who just wanted to dabble in recording — say, brushing up on the local songs, documenting the occasional rarity, maybe even determining a crossbill type from time to time — this model would be ideal.

Olympus LS-10 Linear PCM Recorder (left).  For a couple hundred dollars more, this machine allows higher-quality recording, eliminating the compression that MP3 and similar formats introduce.  Both this and the above recorder can be operated with an external shotgun microphone if desired.

Here’s what Bob had to say about why he records, and how he likes his equipment:

Several years ago I bought a digital voice recorder to replace pen and paper for keeping lists. I found that while playing back the recordings I could sometimes hear the bird I was talking about. After that I would sometimes record the sounds of birds that I didn’t know in order to help identify them.

Mind you, voice recorders certainly have limitations. The microphone’s pickup pattern is less than desirable and I often hear airplanes, insects, and handling sounds on my recordings. I sometimes yearn for a shotgun or parabolic mic to pick up faint sounds and exclude background noise — but then again my equipment fits in my shirt pocket and I can be recording in the time it takes to pull it out of my pocket and press a button.  I don’t usually go out specifically to record bird sounds but since the recorder is always in my pocket I can record whenever an opportunity presents itself.

I also recently bought a true high-fidelity pcm recorder (the Olympus LS-10) but I’m still just using the built in microphones and have just started playing around with it.  Jury is still out on whether I like it. I tried setting record levels manually on some quiet sounds and this led to lots of amplifier noise because I had to crank the levels up a lot to see anything on the VU meters. Later I tried using the auto record level function but then the quiet sounds were barely audible. I think my voice recorder did a better job. I’ll play with it some more but I may have to think about getting a shotgun mic and possibly an external preamp too so I can use line in.

It’s true, of course, that the single most important piece of equipment in a recording rig is the microphone, and these handheld recorders don’t have the best built-in microphones; they’re designed for a human voice at a distance of a couple of feet, not a Song Sparrow 80 meters away.  But for those who simply want basic recording capabilities when the opportunity arises, these things can work pretty well, as this recording by Bob shows.  I’ll let him introduce it:

I was visiting my mom in Illinois and woke up at 4:00 AM and heard this guy. I just opened the window and grabbed the voice recorder. The hum is from the building next door, not the recorder. Because of the hum and the bugs its not the best recording but rather an example of how opportunistic you can be with simple equipment.

Not too shabby!  Here’s hoping that Northern Cardinal helps inspire others to follow Bob’s lead and get into recording, even if it’s just the casual kind!