Nocturnal Flight Call Recording
I started recording bird calls in 2017 and have since built up a library of over 600 recordings. Initially it was just daytime recording and I was doing so as a way of improving my knowledge of and field craft in identifying birds. Initially I was using mobile phone or a Dictaphone. These early recording were lost in the great external hard drive crash of February 2017. Since then I have purchased better field recorder and have been more methodical in logging and up loading recording.
Equipment: Tascam DR-05, New mic
Software: Audacity
Filing: Excel Spreadsheet link to Master file and individual files. Click to open
eBird and Xeno-Canto: files submitted along with sighting reports to these two sites
Nocturnal Recording
Thanks to:
American Birding website for editing tips:
https://blog.aba.org/2014/07/how-to-record-birdsong-2.html
Recording notes from above website that I keep at hand!
MIC SENSE: HIGH
RECORD LEVEL: ca. 8, but see below
LOW CUT FILTER: ON (you’ll see that this is indicated by an “X” symbol)
RESOLUTION: 16 bit
SAMPLE RATE: 44.1 kHz
RECORDING FORMAT: WAV
OPTIONAL MICROPHONE PICKUP PATTERN: ZOOM
RECORD LIMIT: ON (this is indicated by “LIMIT”)
WIND BAFFLES: Make sure they’re affixed.
AA BATTERIES: Make sure they’re installed.
INTERNAL MEMORY: Make sure you have some.
Recording
Keep original copy clean_no edits: As with photos
The wind diminishes the quality of the recording.
Audacity to the rescue: Simply apply the HIGH PASS FILTER with a not-too-severe ROLLOFF. You’ll get good at this after you play around with it for a while. For now, take it on faith that this recording will benefit from a cut off frequency of 1,500 Hz and a rol loff of 24 decibels (dB). The wind is gone:
Noise Reduction: two stage process: Get Profile, Then apply Profile (Check language)
Amplification
Apply Audacity’s AMPLIFY feature. y—5 dB, instead of the maximum allowable 15.
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