This episode is brought to you by the Field Museum in Chicago, Illinois and the Museum für Naturkunde in Berlin, Germany.
Hey, we are here in the National Park Unteres Odertal, and Poland is right there! We can see it!
Also, my feet are freezing.
Let's go!
People have been cultivating grain and farming cattle in the Oder Valley for more than seven thousand years.
alteration of the land ramped up in the early nineteenth century and continued through the 1990s. During the
1970s, industrialization and expanded agricultural practices had a huge impact on transforming the region. Then, the political changes in
1990 allowed for the area to be set aside and protected, and the lower Oder Valley National Park was established in
1995. Dr. Karl-Heinz Frommolt, German accent: and when the National Park was founded, it was decided that
here no agriculture will be done no more and
This
area will develop naturally.
Emily: This is Dr. Karl-Heinz Frommolt, the curator of the animal sound archive for the museum für Naturkunde.
Today, he's going to take us into the field to show us how
scientists collect field recordings in wetlands to learn more about the animals that call them home. But first, a little background
The animal sound archive at the Museum für Naturkunde was established in 1951 and in the last seventy years
Scientists have contributed more than a hundred and twenty thousand recordings to this collection and many of these sounds can now be heard from anywhere
In the world as scientists at the Museum work to move their collection from tapes to digital online archives. Dr. H-F: the first recordings were made in
1951 by Professor Günter Tembrock, and this was a part of a behavioral study.
On October
30th
1951, Günter Tembrock simply tested as a tape recorder and during this time we had
a housing for owls in the garden and
one of the Tawny Owls started to cry and
When this Tawny Owl was calling, a white Tawny Owl came, and
Was to adding with a captive one. Emily: wow! that's amazing! and he caught it all on the recording?
Dr. H-F: We have the recording and we can listen to this recording.
[high pitch owl sounds timed with visual peaks,
lower, more throaty owl sounds]
[splashing water]
We have some wildlife activity here, which is evidence of a wild boar--
Apparently they use their nose to dig into the mud, make a big mess. We might see one today. That would be exciting
I think I could handle it.
*mumbles* me...versus a ...boar. Anyway!
We have a second sighting of evidence of boar--there, a little trail. I think if I follow it I could go find him.
See you! No, okay, I got the other stuff to do, I gotta go.
We have a third piece of evidence from the wild boar some
hoof prints here heading
That way which is maybe East. I don't actually know
And some roe deer hoofs
But I appreciate how this video which is supposed to be about a bio acoustic library, has become
in search of the wild boar
wasn't in the script
...Eh, let's get back to Karl.
Did you use this Dr. H-F: yes, I have used this. Emily: Wow! for your own field recording?
Dr. H-F: For all field recordings. E: and how much does this store like how long could you record?
Dr. H-F: Usually you can...with high quality, with good quality
Approximately 30 minutes, usually, as batteries
don't last more than 30/40 minutes E: really?! Dr. H-F: but it was already a large
Advantage in comparison with (E: yeah) uh, gramophone
Technology yeah, (E: *laughs* yeah that's true) you had to go with the gramophone to the animal and it was almost impossible.
The first tape recorders of this kind were used by the CIA. (E: so spies)
yes, for spies. (E: *whisper* Wow!)
And the advantage of this of course
It's (E: it's much lighter) smaller much lighter and the recording quality
Was extremely good. During the winter you always have some problems. That the batteries would be cold.
(E: Ohh!) until you could put the recorder inside
Your pocket. (E: Yeah!) it will be warm. but the advantage was it was easier to
Work with the tapes--to cut large tapes, then to cut small tapes.
E: Oh, okay, so this was just for spying and for (Dr. H-F: for fieldworkers) E: Yeah for fieldwork. Dr. H-F: It's excellent for fieldwork. E: But mostly for spies!
You have this nifty little box here today too--this is something that you're, you're actually using today to record field work
Dr. H-F: Yeah, it is for
Doing a continuous recording. We, for this purpose, use a small recorder. (E: Yeah,) this is not the usual way.
(E: Yeah,) for power supply. (E: Wow!)
It's self-made. Usually you have here two small batteries and can
record with such a small digital recorder. E: so this you could record for 30 minutes...
(Dr. H-F: Yeah.) How long could you record on this?
Dr. H-F: Approximately one hour. E: one hour, and then you're going to 32 gigs it can record for
48 hours (Dr. H-F: two days yeah) wow!
That's amazing
Well, we have used this
equipment to look if
Corncrakes are present
This is very important since corncrakes are a rare species and when a corncrake is
detected in a meadow, the meadow will not be used in a
certain time. E: really?! so this is what you're putting out there now in these wetland environments to get an idea of
..of what's living there...Dr. H-F: it's at least one way.
E: Okay Karl, where are we now? Dr. H-F: We are now at this place where we are
Doing our acoustic monitoring. (E: okay.)
We have here a long-term recorder
And this is a recording device is working now almost 10 months without any break (E: really?!)
The only break is when we are changing the batteries and the memory cards, (E: okay.)
And the idea is why we have placed the recorder here--in front we have the open space
Where we have
Water birds are breeding, and it's a violent place
We where we have a high concentration of spotted crake, for example
E: And those are rare birds in this area, or? Dr. H-F: these are again in general, rare birds.
We have recorded
Spotted Crake three days earlier then any ornithologist in Germany has reported a spotted Crake.
[pause button press sound] E voiceover: since we recorded this, Karl found another recording showing that the spotted crake had actually migrated to the area
13 days earlier than ornithologists had initially observed, which is a pretty big deal when you're trying to track an endangered species.
E: well
I love that this work is being proactive and you're recording it now with the idea that future
generations are going to be utilizing the animal sound library and helping to
Analyze that information and learn stuff about what you've recorded here today
Dr. H-F: Yes, no, we are already started. To use as a sound library for developing
recognizing [?]
E: Great! Well, You should probably change those batteries. Dr. H-F: Yes, E: okay.
*overlayed dialogue* E: So, what are some of the observations that you've made by analyzing this information
Dr. H-F: We have already analyzed data for some breeding seasons and at least 60
species of
Breeding birds could be detected on the sound recordings. E: Wow! It seems like a lot of information to go through though
Are you coming back here then to your lab every night and having to go through the recordings?
Or are you relying on volunteers or how are you...
ultimately analyzing this information? Dr. H-F: you're right, uh it's
Really a challenge, analyze this huge information
Up to now we can only estimate as a real species composition
By listening to the recordings and other way as to develop some algorithms for
automated analysis using a pattern recognition
Algorithm it works not perfect, but at least the algorithm gives us a good indication
(E: yeah), but
We'll be here. E: Oh, that is a large battery
Oh my god, this is!...this has to be at least 10 pounds!
Dr. H-F: Almost twenty! E: oh my god!
You hike this...I guess you'd have to! You hiked all the way with it. I wasn't carrying anything. I wasn't even helping!
Dr. H-F: Now we are recording. E: ah there it goes! we're back! Dr. H-F: for the next round. E: good. For another month
Back at it. Why am I still holding this battery? I don't know. Dr. H-F: When we only want
to check if a certain species is there,
a one channel recording or stereo recording is
excellent...(E: mm-hmm) but when we want to estimate
the density of birds, we use a four channel setup
you can exactly estimate the direction from which an animal is calling and
When you use a set up of different four channel recordings
you can make a triangulation and has an exactly localizers about E: so you can in you just kind of have a
360 acoustic understanding of where everything might be positioned rather than
Just hearing things on either side and not knowing if it's in front of you or behind you. (Dr. H-F: that's right.) So, you mentioned that
that first recording that
Was made back in 1951, anybody can listen to online. So, is it just that recording? or how much of this information...
is available to the public and...
Why digitize it in the first place? Dr. H-F: digitizing those tape recordings is
only way for conservation of tape recordings. Up to now, we have digitized almost a
96% we're also analog tapes, and I expect that we will finish the process of digitizing
Within the next two years. (E: That's amazing!) and I will be having a total approximately
120,000 recordings (E: Wow) and up to now we have approximately
30,000 or
35,000 recordings online. E: oh
That's fantastic!
so our audience could go on to the library today and
Listen to some of the older recordings or even the more recent recordings. Dr. H-F: Yes. There's no need to come here...
E: Yeah, I mean come and say hi to Karl, but...
Dr. H-F: and to look at the magnetic tapes. E: yeah, which are very cool, by the way.
but that's...I think that's fantastic that you're making such an effort to preserve this information, to make it available for people, and to...
You know, inspire the next generation of people who want to use these techniques to monitor areas not just in Germany
But anywhere in the world (Dr. H-F: worldwide!) yeah, that's fantastic!
Voiceover, E: Before we go--I had the chance to speak with
Dr. Sarah Darwin about her work on the citizen science project
Nightingale City Berlin. Sarah and her colleagues are working with the Museum für Naturkunde's animal sound library to share and analyze the recordings of
the migratory nightingale song, which are submitted by people from all over Berlin. Dr. Darwin, British acccent: so the idea is that
in Berlin every spring these lovely little brown birds--nightingales--migrate from
Africa, and they come to Berlin and they sing on every street corner,
every park, along railway sidings, in gardens. We're gonna have two
scientific components. One will be
Asking the public to go and record the nightingales in their local parks and gardens and put them onto the website--
And then the other will be in the autumn when the weather starts getting a bit dreary. We're going to hopefully train people how to
Analyze this song. Nightingale songs have around a thousand of different little melodies. (E: really!)
Yeah. I... so, I tried to write, um..
(E: You tried to transcribe this!) my intent...and it's not easy because... (E: can you, may be, recite the poem for us? okay
Well, it's not really... it is nearly a song (E: okay!) actually, so I can perform it.
Okay, (E: good) okay, um, so it kind of goes *speak/sings mimicking nightingale song* tick tick tick tick
*mid tone, prolonged* twee twee twee
*high, sudden* pop!
quIdditch quidditch quidditch
*low, fast* Tick-tick-tick *high sudden* tweet!
brrrrrrrr
*low, fast* Tick-tick-tick *high sudden* tweet!
*laughs, claps*
E: Standing ovation, Sarah! That's really something!
Dr. D: oh, you're sweet. Well, it doesn't really sound very much like the actual bird,
E: I was convinced ( Dr. D were you)
good!
E: aah! I love it, aah!
[theme song]
*squishing sound*
I like playing in the mud!
it still has brains on it