Links and Resources

Sites involved in recording and identifying nocturnal flight calls of migratory birds:

http://www.oldbird.org/ - Old Bird, Inc.  Main site for anyone interested in how to record and interpret nocturnal flight calls.  Also the place where you can order Flight Calls of Migratory Birds CD by Evans and O'Brien.  At this site you can download the call detector software (Tseep, Thrush and Dick) as well as the call sorting software (Glassofire).

http://www.birds.cornell.edu/birdcalls - Call Notes and Flight Calls.  Excellent site by Steve Kelling.  Recordings and spectrograms of call notes, flight calls, and nocturnal flight calls.

http://wvbirder.com/noc.htm - Matt Orsie, WV Birder. Spectrograms of nocturnal migrants from Jefferson County, West Virginia.  Execellent bird photographs and WV birding info as well.

http://www.knoxville-zoo.org/birdresearch.htm - Spectrograms of Flight Calls from Purchase Knob, TN.

Birdsong and Call Resources:

http://www.xeno-canto.org/index.php - xeno-canto: Birdsongs from Tropical America. Great site I just found March of '08. Looks to be a sorta of a clearing house for amateur bird recordings. Mostly recordings our of tropical birds but also has flight calls of some shorebirds and herons. You can mae  

http://www.animalbehaviorarchive.org/loginPublic.do - Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Macaulay Library - Sound and Video Catalog.  Wow! One could spend hours surfing around this website.  Just type a bird species in and you might come up with 30-40 recordings to choose from, some of which can be viewed as spectrograms with Ravenviewer.  Videos of birds too.

I have used the following CDs to help ID shorebird and heron calls:

Stokes Field Guide to Bird Songs: Eastern Region (Audio CD)

Stokes Field Guide to Bird Songs: Western Region (Audio CD)

Birding by Ear: Eastern and Central North America: Peterson Field Guides (Audio CD)

More Birding By Ear Eastern and Central North America: Peterson Field Guides (Audio CD)

Sound Analysis Software: 

http://www.birds.cornell.edu/brp/raven/Raven.html - Ravenlite.  I paid $25 for a license but is free to download now. Ravenlite and SyrinxPC are the sound analysis programs I use the most to analyze calls found by the Old Bird detector software (Thrush, Tseep, and Dick).  Great for scanning a soundfile minute by minute for flight calls.

http://syrinxpc.com/ - SyrinxPC.  Free but must contact developer (John Burt) by email to download. Very simple but excellent sound analysis software.  Complements Ravenlite very well.  Or you could say Ravenlite complements Syrinx. Produces nice spectrograms of short duration flight calls.

http://www.birds.cornell.edu/brp/raven/Raven.html - Raven Pro. Free demo version available for download.  Full license costs $400.  I have only used demo version.

http://www.birds.cornell.edu/brp/raven/Raven.html - Raven Viewer.  This is the applet they use at Cornell's Macaulay Library of Sound and Video website.  I have not downloaded it yet.  Trying to think how I could use it to enhance my website. March '08 note - Ravenviewer not working well with latest version of Quicktime. Raven family software folks say they are working on a fix.

http://www.visualizationsoftware.com/gram.html - Spectrogram Version 14.  Produces nice spectrograms.  Takes some time to learn.  I should use it more than I do.  Free trial.  I think it costs about $50.

Sound Editing Software:

http://www.nch.com.au/wavepad/masters.html - Wavepad.  Main program I use to split and convert tracks from Stokes or Peterson's birdsong CDs so I can make my own spectrograms.  Also used for converting Sony Minidisc (Hi-MD) sound files to proper format for processing by the Old Bird call detector programs (Tseep, Thrush and Dick).

http://audacity.sourceforge.net/ - Audacity.  Freeware that functions similar to Wavepad.  Good for splitting and converting birdsong tracks from Stokes and Peterson CDs.  Has not worked well when used to convert Sony Minidisc sound files.  A Sony Minidisc (Hi-MD) sound file converted by Audacity (and run through the Old Bird call detector programs) seems to produce fewer calls than one processed and converted by Wavepad.  Not sure why this happens.

Equipment Suppliers (also check Old Bird for sources for microphone elements, wires, etc.):

http://www.citizensafe.com/ - Citizen Safe. Place where I bought my DectectEar parabolic mic.  They had it for least expensive price ($395) I could find and product was delivered in a timely manner. I just checked their website March '08. They no longer carry it but if you "Google" DetectEar Parabolic Microphone,  a number of places to purchase one from will come up. Cheapest I can find is still around $390.

http://www.markertek.com/ - Markertek. An online store for broadcast supplies.  I have purchased audio wire, adapters, and the Rolls preamp from them.

Maryland Birding Links:

http://www.mdbirds.org/ - Maryland Ornithological Society

http://www.mdkinc.com/mccbird/ - Montgomery Bird Club.  Local club I belong too.

http://www.pbase.com/wcbirding - Mark Hoffman.  Photos of unusual avian vistors to MD.  Also, Mark contributed some of the spectrograms and identification of calls on the Evan and O'Brien Flight Calls of Migratory Birds CD. He did field work with Michael O'Brien at Bayside on Assateague Island, MD.  Bayside is great location to view redertermined migration.

http://www.billhubick.com/ - Bill Hubick Photography.  Bill takes some amazing avian photographs.

http://www.dannymeltzer.com/mdnr.html - Maryland Nature Recordists