Steelflight
Wednesday 27th September 2006, 06:58
Hi. I'm doing a project for school and was wondering if there was someway I could capture "bird sounds." Let me ellaborate.
There is a wildlife refuge by my house and every time I've been up there past dusk I have heard the scream of a barn owl. I am kind of piecing together a way to collect data on the barn owl's call. I read a research paper about a guy who would rig up a barn with tape recorders, record on a 3 hour cassette, then come back the next day and collect the tapes for interpretation and analysis.
My problem is that this is a large, open field area. It is probably 4-5 acres in size. The barn would be a closed environment and the calls would be much louder and concentrated in sound. I was thinking about going around and putting some tape recorders/microphones up on some trees after sunset, hitting RECORD, then coming back the next day to collect them and analyze them. Is this unrealistic? I'm worried the tape recorders wouldn't pick up the sound, or possibly pick up too much background noise (mostly wind-- there aren't any streets around so traffic noise shouldn't be a problem). I am trying to collect a lot of data without having to be up there the entire time. My budget is under 200 bucks, if that means anything. Anyone got any ideas?
Sorry if this sounds dumb. My friend suggested to come to this site because this is where all the bird expertsand ornithologists come.
I'm not totally clear on my post, please let me know.
Thanks a lot in advance!
There is a wildlife refuge by my house and every time I've been up there past dusk I have heard the scream of a barn owl. I am kind of piecing together a way to collect data on the barn owl's call. I read a research paper about a guy who would rig up a barn with tape recorders, record on a 3 hour cassette, then come back the next day and collect the tapes for interpretation and analysis.
My problem is that this is a large, open field area. It is probably 4-5 acres in size. The barn would be a closed environment and the calls would be much louder and concentrated in sound. I was thinking about going around and putting some tape recorders/microphones up on some trees after sunset, hitting RECORD, then coming back the next day to collect them and analyze them. Is this unrealistic? I'm worried the tape recorders wouldn't pick up the sound, or possibly pick up too much background noise (mostly wind-- there aren't any streets around so traffic noise shouldn't be a problem). I am trying to collect a lot of data without having to be up there the entire time. My budget is under 200 bucks, if that means anything. Anyone got any ideas?
Sorry if this sounds dumb. My friend suggested to come to this site because this is where all the bird expertsand ornithologists come.
I'm not totally clear on my post, please let me know.
Thanks a lot in advance!