So it's four thirty in the morning and we're making our way to the roost cavity
being used by mail
he'll build woodpecker we're hoping to get there before first light so we don't
disturb the birds and we get a really good chance to observe them at the roost
right now the consistent concern of courses
it's not getting bit by bit by snakes so we're just keeping your eyes open
I mean we're okay they'll get out of our way they feel you the snakes feel you
move right
yeah
there it is
yeah
so this is so this is the two guns on the tree next one that the cavity in it
we've seen would pick up chips from from the cavity above some of them are kind
of wet and soaked and then starting to lose the color and the falling apart so
those are like you know three weeks old maybe month but then there's these other
ones but they're really crisp and fresh
meaning that it has been working on the cavity of a non over the past few weeks
and it is still very active listing cavity
woodpeckers with this special and a tomato i have for being on trees they
use it and actually not just for for searching for food and for making holes
but it also uses for communication
as most other woodpeckers and use long rolling Trump's available to pick us
this very short bom bom to knock them
it's very correct risk for that group the problem for us is how do we design a
calling device that accurately imitates knocking sound so that we can draw birds
closer to us to study their behavior but when i found out i was going to be doing
my research here in Costa Rica with pale blue packers i contacted Marty on and
Martin said yeah yeah that look I'd love to collaborate on something with pale
built this is a good opportunity
i'm going to send you a prototype of this is double knock box we've been
working on and when he said that I thought to myself wow this is great i'm
testing vocalization playbacks and I'm doing double knock playbacks this fits
into my study perfectly
what a great opportunity the double mark of all these competitors would practice
is a very simple but also quite precise signal that you need to imitate I
remember the day the double knock box shows up on my front porch and I just
cracked up when i open this thing it was the goofiest looking invention double
Marcus incredibly simple looking through the casual observer
I remember bringing it into my supervisor and walking into his office
with this contraption the look on his face is jaw dropped and I could just
I could just see the thoughts running through his head is this kid serious
its standard protocol to do a series of seven during one minute and then have a
four minute portion and do it to the second series of of seven
we're broadcasting this sounds to the forest but we're not exactly sure how
the woodpecker's will respond or how effective the tool will be for bringing
the birds to us like a great location and it is
but no luck so far so we're going to move on you and Samuel yourself from the
beginning we consider doing a handheld imitation of the double knock signals
into steaks or two stance but it's very difficult to consistently get the signal
just right with the right spacing and the right ratio between the two banks
and so we started looking for mechanical tool to give a consistent imitation of
that signal there are recordings of capitalist drumming of double marks and
the recordings can be used through an amplifier to call in capitalist birds
problem is the amplifier doesn't carry the sound through the forest sound
doesn't sound real and it stopped short
the spacing between knocks needs to fall in in a fairly narrow range of between
1700 10 milliseconds and the second knock needs to be less loud in the first
and so we needed a tool that would consistently imitate that signal
one of the things we are concerned about first that the signal might actually be
tool out in spooked birds
today
yeah
one of the coolest things about what we're doing here and about the double
knock experiments in costa rica is we're working on actionable science its its
conservation science that works here in Costa Rica helped develop a better
understanding of pill billed woodpecker behavior territory sighs hopefully that
will be applied for conservation in the tropics
I think that's probably one of my favorite parts about doing these double
knock trials
I know it's it's for a good purpose in the end we can hear double knocks at any
time off to keep our ears wide open
ok
we know they're here
let's hope they're hanging out in the vicinity
it's not always the double mock you here first
sometimes you just hear them fly occasionally they'll come in close and
they won't double knock at all
thats it for here
we can hear some light topping from the bird which usually means it's looking
for good residence
seeing a pill billed woodpecker is something I never take for granted
it's just a phenomenal phenomenal bird to look at
for a pale billed woodpecker that build a powerful ice cream cone for a bill
that's their first survival tool
it really is the means to their survival in this forest and everything from their
feeding to where they sleep at night
- where they raise their young depends on that powerful bill out of school for
a while
good session every conversation with a built-in literally that's okay
it's not up to get to talk territory with a bird and I check the Testament
very well we really really pleased with the results first of all the birds
respond to it in a consistent way and also very encouraging results that they
are not too spooked by a day they don't leave their home range they just come
back to their roots at night so that's it exactly the result we were hoping for
I think one of the things I've come to appreciate most about the double knot
box is its simplicity and it's a reminder that science doesn't always
have to involve rockets
science can be simple it's his problem solving and this is this is great
problem solving
by the way there is a bell bills would pick a forging here about 10 yards of a
flash
it's not on the victory so this is going to be awesome man
let's do some double knocks