Recording wildlife is something that anyone can do and it's a great way to
add the body of knowledge about the life history of birds and other animals
What I'd like to share with you today are a few fundamental steps that you can
take to document your bird observations with audio recordings. Whether you are using a
smartphone or a dedicated audio recording system there are a few
fundamentals to keep in mind that will ensure you get the best caliber
recording.
If you're not reporting with a cell phone
one of the first things you want to do is turn your cellphone off. As a
cellphone searches
it emits signal that will be picked up by your recording system. So i'm going to
put this in airplane mode and in my pocket it goes. For the sake of today's
demonstration what i have is a parabolic reflector and an over-the-shoulder
digital recorder.
The first thing I've got to do is put all this gear on my body and the order
is important in order to not generate a lot of noise every time I move
I usually begin by putting the recorder across my chest like this
I don't have to worry about it falling off my shoulder at an inopportune time
the next thing that I'm going to put on are my binoculars.
I want them at the ready. If your binoculars are underneath your strap of
your recorder when it comes time to pull them up and take a look at what you're
recording
it's going to be a little challenging. Lastly are my headphones and they don't
go on your ears until you're actually going into record mode.
I where my headphones up above my ears in a position that allows me to quickly
put them on with one hand and quickly remove them. If you wear your headphones
all the time and you're using a monaural microphone
it's like having one ear and you're not going to be able to localize your target.
So I'm pretty comfortable now I like the way i have things set up
I usually hold the microphone in my left hand and keep the more complicated
duties to my right hand and that's the operation of the recorder so now I'm
ready to go
I'm in the field and I'm listening.
I can hear an Eastern Phoebe singing back in the trees here
probably not too high up but back there somewhere.
So I'm going to begin my approach to make sure I'm close enough to get a
decent signal on the recorder. And as I approach the bird i generally don't
walk straight at it.
This is especially useful here because I've got a little bit of cover
I can walk between the trees and so I'm going to zigzag back and forth to try
and get a little closer without going directly at the animal which is
essentially a pretty threatening approach
This looks like a good spot.
Not a lot of leaf litter on the ground not any twigs that I have to worry about
stepping on and snapping and I'm probably a good 30 meters still from the
bird but it's loud enough that i'm getting good signal and I have a clear
trajectory between me and the vocalizing bird.
If I have to follow the bird
I'm going to pivot at the waist or I'm going to move my arm.
The next step is to get headphones on my arm is bent and relaxed so i can hold
this for a good long while
fine tune the aim of my microphone, set the level accordingly to reach that
desired peak of -12 on my meter and go into record mode.
So how long do I record?
At least a couple of minutes at a minimum
I want to get six songs out of this singing bird
If the situation's good keep recording the bird may well change its
vocalization.
Now I have my two minutes of recording so I'm going to shut down the recorder
at this point. I'll quickly given an announcement
30 meters from the bird and I'm going to begin my my approach
hopefully cutting the distance in half and thereby achieving a 6dB increase in
the level of the signal of interest.
Alright so I've halved the distance now time to begin recording.
Hopefully with an improved signal so headphones back on.
Check my record level. Fine tune the parabola to make sure I'm aim directly
at the bird.
Fortunately I have a really good clear trajectory
right now. I get the level up to -12 my target and we're in record mode.
Okay, so I've captured another five minutes which is great and definitely improve
the signal level.
I'm going in to stop mode here.
The last thing I want to do is to add a voice announcement to the recording
which tells basically who, what, where, and when.
So that was the song of an Eastern Phoebe. It's the 19th of April 2016 the
time is 13:56 hours
I'm at Sapsucker woods Cornell Lab of Ornithology. The temperature is about 61
degrees, clear blue sky overhead, no wind. That bird was advertising from the upper
branches of fairly open woodlot here. And as it sang the tail was pumped.
It was a single individual.
It was recorded in mono using a Nagra Seven and a Telinga pro universal
parabola with a sennheiser Emmy 62 microphone. My distance from the bird in
And this last sequence was about 15 metres and the background noise was minimal.
All a decent recording. And then close the file.
What I want to make certain of is that I'm ready for the next recording.
I rarely make recordings with the record level turn down all the way or turned up
to the maximum level, so I'll position the record gain control knob it about
the midpoint, and I'll have the machine in test, have my microphone comfortably
in hand, and then I'm ready to move on. If something does suddenly happen
as I'm walking through the woods all I've got to do is turn the recorder on
and aim the mic and I stand a chance of getting it.
So let's get out there and get recording!