Brutkey

Ross of Ottawa
@ottaross@mastodon.social

A #birder question from a non-ornithologist which came to mind after hearing a #BirdNote segment on #NPR.

The piece reveals that some bird calls change over the years and others have been stable for millennia. One maybe 500kYrs.

That was seemingly deduced based on comparing calls of populations separated at a specific point in their history (prob thru DNA analysis).

So a #question…

#ornithology #twitcher #birdwatching

Ross of Ottawa
@ottaross@mastodon.social

The ornithology Q…

is there a means by which bird calls are captured/documented on paper, or other _non-audio_ means?

The only method I can imagine would be to record, slow down maybe 10x, then use musical notation

Ross of Ottawa
@ottaross@mastodon.social

I'm aware of modern sonograms etc, but I suspect intrepid Victorian explorers must've made some attempt at it with pen and ink.

Chuck in the Galapagos with the finches for example?

Ross of Ottawa
@ottaross@mastodon.social

Here's a bit of info on the art of bird sound description and transcription I dug up.

There's more standardization there than I realized, in the construction of sound-descriptive syllables, but it still seems rather imprecise, leaving much to the subjective interpretation of the watcher/recorder.

I guess it would aid in identification but would be unlikely to help in tracking subtle frequency changes or timing drift over years or decades.

https://soundapproach.co.uk/blogs/blog/translating-bird-sounds-into-words