{"id":1919,"date":"2010-04-23T21:57:27","date_gmt":"2010-04-24T03:57:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/earbirding.com\/blog\/?p=1919"},"modified":"2010-04-23T21:59:25","modified_gmt":"2010-04-24T03:59:25","slug":"two-new-warbler-websites","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/earbirding.com\/blog\/archives\/1919","title":{"rendered":"Two New Warbler Websites"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"screenshot\"<\/a>
screenshot from Dendroica<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The title of this blog post is a little misleading – while both websites have warbler themed names, the real\u00a0 purpose of this blog is to announce two new nature sound resources.\u00a0 The first website I’m announcing today is Dendroica<\/a>, a new identification resource for North American birds.\u00a0 Originally released back in 2007 on CD, it has just come to the web.\u00a0 Under their acknowledgments they state their main purpose as an “interactive training program developed originally to aid participants of the Breeding Bird Survey and other scientific surveys of Canadian bird species such as Breeding Bird Atlases to develop their bird song identification skills.”<\/p>\n

The usefulness of this website extends far beyond those audiences, though.\u00a0 First you have to register as a user and get a username and password.\u00a0 Then the user can select one of three countries – Canada, the United States, and Mexico – to start, and then select from a list of species that occur in that country.\u00a0 For the US and Canada that list is near complete (I only noticed a few peripheral species not included, like Spectacled Eider).\u00a0 For Mexico there is obviously a lot of work to do, but hopefully the holes will be filled in as work on the site goes forward.<\/p>\n

Once the user selects a species they are presented with sound recordings and photos of the selected species.\u00a0 The amount of audio Dendroica has is truly impressive, and draws from a wide variety of sources.\u00a0 Included are many species and many vocalizations not available elsewhere on the web, and the quality is universally excellent.\u00a0 At the moment coverage of some species is a little sparse, but presumably work is ongoing, and as more contributions are made this could become just about the most comprehensive collection of US bird songs available for free on the internet.<\/p>\n

The little blurb below the photo gives a brief description of the primary song, and in some cases variation in song and calls.\u00a0 The source and documentation for the selected recording is shown just below this.<\/p>\n

One other available feature that many users will find useful is a “quiz” button.\u00a0 Clicking this will give you a random sound and a list of possible answers.<\/p>\n

Features I would really like to see Dendroica implement include more notes on what each recording includes.\u00a0 As it is you have to search the recordings for calls and alternate sounds\/subspecies variation.\u00a0 If it were me, I’d divide the recordings up by vocalization type and subspecies.\u00a0 It would also be nice if there was more information on geographical and vocal variation.<\/p>\n

I also find the automatic playing of one of the sounds when you select a new species account to be highly annoying, but that is in part personal preference.\u00a0 There are very few errors that I was able to find, quite an accomplishment when this many sounds\/photos are in one place (but I also didn’t go through with a fine-toothed comb).\u00a0 What they have down for Omao (a Hawaiian Myadestes<\/em> species) as song is actually the song of Brown-backed Solitaire, and another is that the recording they have for Black-capped Gnatcatcher either has a mislabeled location (California), or is mis-identified.<\/p>\n

All in all I really like Dendroica, and highly recommend it.<\/p>\n

\"rbif2\"<\/a>
Rufous-backed Inca-Finch, January 24, 2010, Ancash, Peru. Copyright Ian Davies.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The other new site I’m writing about here is my own, vermivora.com<\/a>.\u00a0 I’ve just started working on it, and it’s still very much a work in progress.\u00a0 The main focus will be Neotropical, and will include photos, sounds, and trip reports from there and anywhere my travels take me.<\/p>\n

The main focus of the sound part of vermivora, at the moment, will be sounds that I can’t post to xeno-canto<\/a> (mammals, reptiles, and amphibians), and the “project” page.\u00a0 There I plan to post pages rather like the ID and taxonomy article posted here, but with a neotropical focus.\u00a0 Eventually this page will also include other sound resources of a tropical nature.<\/p>\n

For an idea of what I’m talking about, take a look at the page on Inca-Finch vocalizations<\/a> I posted.\u00a0 I probably won’t be adding new information as often as the earbirding blog is updated, but do check back occasionally to see if there’s anything new.<\/p>\n

Finally, if you have any interest in trip reports from the tropics, part of vermivora.com will be dedicated to detailed reports of my birding trips to South America, with information on how to travel there cheaply and with public transport.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The title of this blog post is a little misleading – while both websites have warbler themed names, the real purpose of this blog is to announce two new nature sound resources.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1919","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/earbirding.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1919","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/earbirding.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/earbirding.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/earbirding.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/earbirding.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1919"}],"version-history":[{"count":22,"href":"https:\/\/earbirding.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1919\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1942,"href":"https:\/\/earbirding.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1919\/revisions\/1942"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/earbirding.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1919"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/earbirding.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1919"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/earbirding.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1919"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}