Date: 4/15/25 7:37 am From: Chris Dean via groups.io <chrisdeanbirder...> Subject: [OrangeCountyBirding] [LACoBirds] Let's Record Bird Sounds!
Hi,
I'm passing along Lance's helpful email about recording birds - see below.
Birding often broadens our senses. By recording birds, I've become more
aware of various vocalizations. It is fun!
Chris Dean
Silver Lake
---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Lance Benner via groups.io <lbenner...>
Date: Mon, Apr 14, 2025 at 11:47 PM
Subject: [LACoBirds] Let's Record Bird Sounds!
To: <lacobirds...>
Hi Everyone,
Following up on the recent webinar on recording bird sounds presented for
Los Angeles Birders (available online at:
https://www.labirders.org/webinars/sound_recordings_mar2025.html) we would
like to encourage birders in our area to obtain more bird recordings and to
upload them to eBird.
Birders in Los Angeles County excel at submitting eBird checklists and
uploading photos to eBird, but far fewer recordings have been contributed.
For example, currently more than 771,000 photos from Los Angeles County
have been entered into eBird, but only about 18,300 audio recordings have
been uploaded. In other words, 42 times as many photos have been uploaded
relative to sound recordings. In Orange county, the contrast is even more
stark: 684,000 photos have been uploaded versus only 7400 audio recordings.
Recordings can be really important (arguably even more so than photos in
many situations) but most audio files uploaded to eBird in this area are
provided by only a small number of people. Everyone can make valuable
contributions if you have a smartphone; fancy and complicated recording
equipment, although very helpful, is not necessary.
Recordings are easier than ever to obtain with the widespread use of free
smartphone sound recording apps such as Merlin, Voice Record Pro, SongMeter
Touch, Voice Memo, and others. Each recording is analoglous to a museum
specimen and can be useful in ways that aren't always immediately obvious.
Recordings document bird songs at a particular time and location and can be
increasingly important in the future.
Recording is also an excellent way to learn bird sounds and can be useful
for research projects (e.g., identifying red crossbill and evening grosbeak
flight call types).
Recordings of all species in our area are important, even from species that
are very common such as mourning doves, California towhees, California
scrub-jays, house finches, acorn woodpeckers, common ravens, lesser
goldfinches, and Anna's hummingbirds. Species with wide voical repertoires
are particularly worthwhile: Bewick's wrens, California thrashers, northern
mockingbirds, and oak titmice.
One specific topic that needs attention is singing by female birds, which
isn't that well understood. It's been widely accepted for many years that
female birds don't sing but evidence is growing that females of some
species actually sing quite a bit; purple finches and canyon wrens are good
examples. We need more recordings!
Right now is an excellent time to record birds because many are arriving
for the spring and singing vigorously.
If you haven't attempted recording bird songs, please give it a try! It's
actually straightforward and a lot of fun. Doing so has helped me learn
many sounds and gain a deeper appreciation for birds and their behaviors.
With most smartphone apps, just start the recording app and then press the
button to start recording. Then press the stop button to end the
recording.
Before uploading the files to eBird, it's a good idea to trim handling
noise at the beginning and end and to normalize the files to -3 dB
(decibels). Normalizing usually amplifies so that the loudest sound on the
recording is at a standard value. This is strongly encouraged for eBird
submissions although it's not required. I normally do this by transferring
the files to my laptop and then using the free software "Audacity" but many
other sound editing apps such as Raven Lite (which is also free) can do
this. The talk mentioned above discussed this, but if you have questions,
feel free to email me.
Also, not all smartphone recording apps have the same sensitivity. Merlin
is probably the most widely used phone recording app, and it can do many
wonderful things, but its sensitivity is not as good as other apps such as
Voice Record Pro and Song Meter Touch. Of course, many people use Merlin
to help identify sounds, which the other apps mentioned above don't do.
Voice Record Pro and SongMeter Touch give users more control and can record
significantly fainter sounds. For example, I regularly hear sounds that do
not appear in Merlin recordings, but with Voice Record Pro, I can capture
many more of them.
In the bigger picture, we'd like to build a library of as many bird sounds
in the greater Los Angeles area as possible to document what's here and to
establish a baseline for future changes. This is an ideal project for
community science, so we'd like to ask for your help.
We hope you'll join us!
Regards,
Lance
Lance Benner
Pasadena, CA
On behalf of Los Angeles Birders
