Nature Sound Recording

By

Meena Haribal

on 15^th April, 2004 at Studio 2000, Mumbai, India

16 members of the section attended this very interesting presentation by Meena Haribal, Research Associate at Cornell Lab of Ornithology, in Ithaca, NY, USA.

Her interest includes many aspects natural such as species identification and behavior of birds, butterflies and other organisms. Since past three years she has got very interested in natural sounds and has been recording birds and other natural sounds. Her subject for the evening was titled “Nature Sound Recording”.

Meena came with a powerpoint presentation, with many a CD’s of the recorded birds and sounds of other species. At the onset she made it clear that she is a scientist first and her recordings are for the purpose of research and education, as against the section members who are professional sound recordists and indulge in recording for the media and entertainment industry. 

She is a life-member of Bombay Natural History Society, India, for last 25 years, and been its secretary in the past and was also president of Cayuga Bird Club in Ithaca till last year. According to her there are about 600 species of birds in USA and there are almost equal number of nature sound recordists, many of whom are professional,  whereas in India there are more than 1000 species of birds and there is not a single dedicated nature sound specialist.

The first nature (bird) sound recordist was of course Mr. Thomas Edison, who in 1870 recorded an American Robin on a wax drum!

The birds make sounds for a) communication and b) for defending territory etc. Each species has its own typical characteristic sound and each bird of same species has its own “melody” and sings different melodic phrases. She played a variety of bird recordings such as Red-rumped Cacique, Brewer’s Blackbird, Song Wren, Fox Sparrow etc.

Many species have different bandwidth of sound naturally “allotted” to them to “broadcast” their communication. They also have a wider range of sound creating and recognizing capacity as compared to humans. For example humans can hear in the range of 20 Hz- 20KHz. Range for other animals are as follows:

Dogs – 50Hz to 45KHz

Cats – 45Hz to 85KHz

Dolphins – 20Hz to 200KHz

Bats – subsonic to 120KHz

To record nature is a stupendous and patient business. Further more it has become much more difficult with the increasing “civilization” covering more and more natural vistas.

As per the nature sound specialist, Mr. Bernie Krause

         “ In 1968 it took 15 hours to get 1 hour of useful material and now it takes a                    massive 2000 hours of recording to get 1 hours worth”

There are different specialist branches in nature sound recording –

           Biophony – recording of different species

           Geophony – Natural sound recording – waterfalls, volcanos etc.

           Ecophony – Studying habitats of different species

Also, sound recording is used to study migration, conservation, rediscovery and reevaluation of habitats etc.

For example, recently,  Cornell Lab of Ornnithology mounted a massive expedition to search for Ivory Billed Woodpecker, which is thought probably to be extinct from its last known habitat. Several recording units were placed in strategic places in the wild where birds could be suspected to be present.  Then the sounds were recorded for several days in the breeding season.  The recorded sounds were digitally searched for the possible calls of woodpeckers using, a specially designed software.

Hot air balloons equipped with long playing recorders have been sent in to the night skies to record night flight calls of migrating birds by Mr. Bill Evans. While discussing this Meena played his recordings. 

Also, played back the “ frog chorus” by Mr. Lang Elliot useful in estimating amphibian census.

She then showed the interesting spectragram of a marshland sounds. Birds occupied the 2 to 4 KHz bandwidth whereas insects were happily chirping between 7KHz – 9KHz. The separated bandwidth is part of evolutionary process, she told.

She then discussed about the equipment used for recording nature and the software such as Raven written by researchers at Cornell Lab of Ornithology and Cool Edit (now Adobe Audition) used for deciphering those recordings.

The recordings are done in the field with portable recorders, where there is often no electricity. Recorders such as consumer tape recorders with mic inputs, professional recorders such as Nagra, DAT machines and minidiscs are used in the field. Portable mics such as shotgun mics, stereo mics with or with out pre-amps are used in the field to get directional recordings. Parabola dishes are used to minimize other unwanted surrounding sounds and to enhance the signals.

Her presentation was followed by a very lively Q/A session. Many subjects cropped – Batteries used, Sounds of Birds used by Indian Film makers (originating from Hollywood Effects Library and used with visuals of Indian locations), digital or analog and the archiving practices used for nature sounds in American University Labs. 

At the end she concluded that the recoding of nature sounds is a challenge as different kinds of techniques are required and some of the subjects are difficult to locate. Concepts like biophony, soundscapes, bio-acoustic diversity, acoustic ecology, etc. are emerging fields in nature sound recording. Humans are very fast changing the acoustic environments and their effects on the environment are unknown. And nature sound recording is of great help here.

It was a very interesting presentation and many described it as an eye opener. The feeling was summed up by a member, Priyesh Patel, when he expressed regret about not recording Malabar Giant Squirrel, a pet which he had for many years, which is not with him any more!!