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ZEISS DTI thermal imaging cameras. For more discoveries at night, and during the day.

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    Setup for newbie

    I don't have much input, but I found with a shotgun mic, headphones weren't necessary to monitor (I used a Sennheiser ME67 + Marantz PMD661). My recorder displays recording levels, so I knew by looking if I was "frying" the recording. However, with a parabola, I find headphones absolutely...
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    help needed with sonagram editing

    Opening an older version of Rave Lite, I see magnifying glass buttons controlling the vert/horiz zoom. The buttons circled in red control the freq zoom:
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    SHOTGUN MIC vs PARABOLIC OPTION for distant sounds

    Telinga parabola seems rather expensive if you're looking to just amplify sounds. My experience with shotgun versus parabola is yes you can hear more things in the distance with either... just turn up the gain on the recorder while wearing headphones. The parabola is more tightly focused...
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    GPS - Fairly low budget, good features for birding

    I have a Garmin eTrex Venture HC for sound recording. I use it to "track" where I walk, so I can review my actual route later on. I input waypoints where I take recordings. I often announce the waypoint into the mic for easy matching up later, and put those GPS coords into the sound file...
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    Blue Jays Attempt to Defend Fledgling from Crow

    > blue jay being the aggressor toward another bird's nest and its young. That's absolutely what I understood as the event. At the time (July 5th, 2009) I had an impression of who the victim was, though I cannot recall now... maybe a Catbird nest. I apologize that I fried the recording (too...
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    Blue Jays Attempt to Defend Fledgling from Crow

    I stood next to a very loud mob of angry birds chasing something into the brush, many species joining in. Finally, a Blue Jay squirted out the back, the mob took off after him. One "funny" thing was: Brown-headed Cowbirds joined in. I wonder why as they have no nest to defend from raiding...
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    Advice needed urgently on sound recording equipment

    My experience is limited -- there are infinitely more qualified people than myself. I don't have a breadth of exposure as I've only used a PMD661 with both a Sennheiser ME67 and Telinga parabola. Spectrograms are absolutely workable with the shotgun mic, but are a bit clearer with a parabola...
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    And one field guide format to rule them all...

    Maybe some guides should leverage "Alphabet Technology" and put in an index.
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    Marantz 661

    I've had one for a year. However, I don't have experience with other devices for comparison. I use it with a Sennheiser ME67. You have to use class 6 SD cards, otherwise it'll hiccup. Using rechargeable batteries, I go about 4 hours before I put in a fresh set. I don't think this is...
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    Raven pro question

    Do you mean automatic detection of species? No, not that I know of. You can run "detectors" to look for sound events based on certain parameters, but this only alerts that a sound is present, not which species. P.S. > coefficient corelation program on a stats package Raven Pro can run...
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    Sound file storage?

    Disk space is cheap these days, so I store in .wav. If you convert one to .mp3, please re-check the spectrogram in Raven and see if that's what you want for the rest (depending, .mp3 can be very 'lossy'). I assume you're not just listening, but looking with Raven Lite. (If I need to convert...
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    Night Migration with GlassOfFire

    Unsure how to edited my previous posts. Images are now here: http://home.comcast.net/~buile/May_7-8_2009_examples.jpg http://home.comcast.net/~buile/May_11-12_2009.jpg
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    My first high quality scope

    Hey, FockeWulf, you must be a fan of the Butcherbird ;) Congrats on the new scope.
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    What on earth do I have to do to see an owl?

    > Hey, the "mobbing crow" technique worked Perfect, Daddy! This is also how I saw my first Great Horned the other day. I didn't have a yen to see an Owl, and never sought them out-- but I was very curious to see what the crows had... Great Horned is an impressive bird.
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    Night Migration with GlassOfFire

    After a couple nights of virtually no activity overhead, some more came through last night: http://www.prism.net/user/buile/May_11-12_2009.jpg A couple new figures I don't think I've seen yet (for example, the second to last). Haven't had the time to examine the waveforms... for the bulk of...
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    Night Migration with GlassOfFire

    > Passive radar ? Hey, in a way it is :) Birds migrating at night give flight and contact calls to stay in touch. So, just point a microphone at the night sky and record all night long. Oldbird.org provides software to scan .wav files looking for sound bursts within frequency ranges...
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    Zoom H4--memory card question

    Watch out for card specs... take a look at the thread I posted regarding the Marantz PMD661 corruption issues. Boils down to: different cards of the same size have different "Class" ratings which may be the difference between functioning and not-functioning. As for what the official specs...
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    Night Migration with GlassOfFire

    Last night, May 7-8th was a real bonanza. Over 200 hits, which is 5-20 times more than anything previously gotten. An example of some calls: http://www.prism.net/user/buile/May_7-8_2009_examples.jpg I bought OldBird.org's Flight Calls of Migratory Birds CD, which is not just a CD, but...
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    Night Migration with GlassOfFire

    Anyone using the software bits from OldBird.org: Tseep-x, Thrush-x, and Glass-of-Fire? The idea is the software searches wav files for blasts in certain frequency ranges to detect night migrating bird calls. Now that my Marantz is working without issues, I recorded last night and ran the...
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    File Corrupted on Marantz PMD661

    Thanks, Valzuniga. I bought a Class 6 card after Marantz called to explain the problem. I left it recording for over 8 hours without any issues: no arbitrary stoppage, no locking up of the unit, and all files copied fine from card to computer.
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    Cape May - New Jersey -RFI

    You may wish to try the JerseyBirds mailing list. There are many familiar with Cape May and environs, and hopefully someone can give you detailed info (including info on Pelagic trips): https://lists.princeton.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A0=JerseyBi
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    File Corrupted on Marantz PMD661

    In the end, this turns out to be an issue with the SDHC cards. The cards I bought were Class 2. Class 2 cards experience lock-ups in the PMD661, whereas Marantz does not see this with Class 4 (and presumably Class 6) cards. The part I'm unsure of is why? Class 2 cards must support speeds (I...
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    File Corrupted on Marantz PMD661

    After using 3 different new SanDisk 4GB cards, all of them generating corrupt files about 1/3 of the time (plus occassional locking, and seemingly arbitrary stoppage of recording), Marantz is going to check out the unit and cards. Hopefully, there'll be a resolution. I experienced none of the...
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    Field Guide for NA

    I have no experience with the Kaufman, but as a beginner, I found the Sibley guide best as it helps teach what to look at for IDs. It is still my main guide; I supplement this with the Smithsonian guide for its fantastic, thoughtful, well-laid-out photos to see an actual specimen, plus...
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    Google Earth and Trip reports

    Birdpost.com tries to supply that -- it relies on users to add sightings to (google) maps. It's relatively new, and I believe still in "beta." Unfortunately, ebird.org is for North America only, but it has much more data to explore and map.
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