Date: Fri, 7 Feb 2003 12:07:12 -0500 Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: James Speicher Subject: Playing song recordings in the field MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Due to the extreme miniaturization of recording & playback devices this has the potential to become a real problem. Broadcasting bird song in the field seems to me to be the equivalent of bringing telemarketing to the birds. I was disappointed when i checked not to see any mention of the etiquette of this practice in either of my (ancient) field guides (Robbins/Golden and Peterson) but maybe the newer guides have addressed this. In a group setting such as MOS conference field trips maybe recordings have their place, but even that is debatable. My personal opinion is that this is only acceptable in rare cases, for example in field studies necessary to document population dynamics. If there isn't a clear benefit to the birds and since it may, in fact, be harmful, i wouldn't do it. Jim Speicher jspeicher@niaid.nih.gov Bethesda @work:( FRED Co @home:) > ---------- > From: Parke H John > Reply To: Maryland Birds & Birding > Sent: Thursday, February 6, 2003 11:12 AM > To: MDOSPREY@HOME.EASE.LSOFT.COM > Subject: [MDOSPREY] Bird Calls - not Maryland specific - an > explanation. > > I got a lot of replies on this posting, which I appreciate very much, so I > thought an explanation would be helpful. > > In the beginning: A trip leader at the last MOS conference had a > device on his belt that he played bird calls on. After some thought, I > decided to try the same thing myself. > > I had previously tried the same thing on audio cassettes. They > worked great, but it was a lot of tedious work. I figured the computer > would take the tedium out. > > Knowing nothing about audio recording on the computer, I > investigated it on the internet and talked to the geeks at work. MP3 > seemed like the way to go. I probably would not go this way now! > > I down loaded the software to record the bird call CD into my > computer. It's called ripping. > > I than down loaded the software to edit the bird calls. The > software provides a visual display of the CD track (sonogram?). From > this, you can cut out the voice, and recopy the calls to make a good long > recording. > > I have different files for every call. I just load the songs into > a MP3 player. > > I ahve a $100 MP3 player that works well with battery powered > speakers. This is what I'm trying to optimize. It would be nice to have > a compact unit that hung on my belt, but so far, no luck. > > I've purposely left out some info because I take this very > seriously. I am very discreet with my calls and always try to impact the > birds as little as possible. If you really interested in details, email > me direct. But, there probably are better ways to do this. > > Thanks again, Parke. > pjohn@wlgore.com > parke@del.net > > ======================================================================= > To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com > with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey > ======================================================================= > > ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================