The Cornell Lab’s Macaulay Library is the world’s largest and oldest archive of natural sounds and video, and you can browse its holdings online. Though it’s best known for its bird recordings, the Macaulay Library also features insects, fish, amphibians, reptiles, and mammals—including a recent addition: gibbons recorded in the wild in Thailand. They’re the [...]
To a computer, it’s just a complex combination of ones and zeros. Decoded for our ears, it becomes wondrous sound—a symphony, or the song of a lark. Thanks to digital technology, recordings of bird, insect, mammal, fish, and amphibian voices in the Lab’s Macaulay Library will last virtually forever. It’s taken more than 12 years, [...]
It’s an exciting time to be in field biology—the naturalists of today have more tools at their disposal than ever before. To learn how to use those tools, a group of Cornell students have been spending this summer in the field; and Abby McBride, a summer writing intern, accompanied them in the field to write the [...]
Peter Wrege and Liz Rowland are wrapping up their research at Grand Saline Bai, in Gabon—but Peter has sent us a recording of elephants cavorting in the dark, and Liz has just seen her first daytime elephants in the bai (clearing). Enjoy her photographs, and then close your eyes and listen in on Peter’s recording: [...]
One glossy python and eight automated recorders: those were the highlights we heard about this weekend from Peter Wrege and Liz Rowland. They’re spending the next six weeks recording elephants in Gabon—here’s post #2 from them: Everything is in place: eight autonomous recording units (ARUs) now surround the bai (clearing) at distances ranging from 150 [...]
Jon Erickson is still roaming Mauritius with his microphone, making recordings of the tropic island’s unusual species. That’s him above, installing a microphone to record sounds at a Mauritius Kestrel nest in January. Here’s his story of the day’s work, including an alarming surprise encounter: I’d spent so much time out among the seabirds of [...]
Over the holidays, recordist Jon Erickson spent a couple of weeks on Round Island, a slanting, sun-baked slab of rock about 14 miles off the north coast of Mauritius. He recorded the island’s multitudes of Herald Petrels and Wedge-tailed Shearwaters, helped the island wardens with chores, and shared his meals with several stout lizards. Here’s [...]
Last time we checked in with Jon Erickson he was getting to know a couple of Mauritius Kestrels. This time he’s been out to Ile aux Aigrettes, a tiny island sitting a half-mile off the island of Mauritius. It’s a refuge maintained by the Mauritian Wildlife Foundation, and home to giant tortoises, pink pigeons, and [...]
