Hearing issues and birding (2 Viewers)

[bonxie birder]

My wife is often my direction finder

 

[Ries]

I got surgery on my right ear in my teens, hearing in that ear decreased by 10-15% (maybe more now, years later after it was tested last?) and of course that's mainly high frequencies. The left is fine, so I do hear high bird sounds but have to turn my head to focus which direction it comes from. That's a bit annoying, but ah well, suffices.

Oh, and when I get tired, I get tinnitis in my left ear, a slight ringing high beeeeeeeeeeeep. I often think I hear Common Grasshopper or cricket/grasshopper but it's just me, that's pretty annoying in summer. Too much loud concerts without hearing protection (really very much of them).

 

[bonxie birder]

I’m not really convinced by the loud music/ concert argument. Plenty of my friends of my generation and younger, who also listen(ed) to loud music tick off grassies every year without any problems. I think it’s more of a medical/genetic problem. But it’s a great ploy for our parents and teachers to tell us to turn it down.

 

[Ries]

I can even tell you the exact two concerts that tipped it over the edge haha.

 

[pshute]

I’m not really convinced by the loud music/ concert argument. Plenty of my friends of my generation and younger, who also listen(ed) to loud music tick off grassies every year without any problems. I think it’s more of a medical/genetic problem. But it’s a great ploy for our parents and teachers to tell us to turn it down.

It depends how loud it is, how long and how often. I've read that anything that leaves your ears ringing or with temporary reduced hearing has done damage.

And the damage often isn't apparent till years later. Your ears can compensate for missing frequency bands by increasing the sensitivity to the adjacent frequencies, but eventually they go too. When I was in my early 20s, I thought I had excellent hearing because I could hear the AM radio pilot tone (19KHz?) and the scanning frequency of tube TVs (15KHz?) from out in the street. My audiologist says it was probably really the first sign I was losing the high frequencies.

 

[John Cantelo]

One aspect of this problem yet to be touched on is not being able to hear what others are calling on a seawatch or directions to (or even the identity of) a bird they've found. This makes it harder to quickly pick up on birds that don't always stay around for long. This probably cost me several birds on a trip to Goa last year. More recently I was looking for a Pallas's Warbler locally with friends when one of them excitedly waved us over. I assumed he'd found the Pallas's but neither heard his or others call of 'Dusky Warbler' and certainly couldn't hear the bird itself (it was calling persistently I'm told). Hence I was mentally looking for a tiny olive-and-yellow warbler in the hedge row so almost missed the brown job grovelling at its base.

 

[bonxie birder]

That’s a very good point. Wearing masks has highlighted the problem I have. Not only does it muffle the voice, but you realise how much you lipread. This is very noticeable birding in the field. Fellow birders generally give directions while facing the bird, not you.

 

[MiddleRiver]

The Story Behind Our App | Hear Birds Again

Lang Elliott's personal story about how he lost his ability to hear high pitches but eventually found a solution that brought back the high singing birds.

hearbirdsagain.org

Songfinder is coming back, in iOS app form.

 

[pshute]

The Story Behind Our App | Hear Birds Again

Lang Elliott's personal story about how he lost his ability to hear high pitches but eventually found a solution that brought back the high singing birds.

hearbirdsagain.org

Songfinder is coming back, in iOS app form.

Thanks, but the article doesn't give much detail, still no release date.

An app would work well for me, I could listen through my aids via Bluetooth.

Edit: there's more on their FAQ page. The app will be free, funded by donations. Haven't seen anything about a release date or progress, or fundraising progress. I guess I'd better give them something.

Edit 2: their Donate page says they've raised $7,300 of their $20,000 goal.

 

[MiddleRiver]

Thanks, but the article doesn't give much detail, still no release date.

An app would work well for me, I could listen through my aids via Bluetooth.

Edit: there's more on their FAQ page. The app will be free, funded by donations. Haven't seen anything about a release date or progress, or fundraising progress. I guess I'd better give them something.

Edit 2: their Donate page says they've raised $7,300 of their $20,000 goal.

Look at opening page Hear Birds Again which includes may/2022 update. It sounds like it's being tested and of course more $$ will permit completion of project.
Another local club birder has the last(?) version of the electronics-in-a-box and speaks highly of it. I came across the website seeing if it was still available. Sounds like a winner to me, but of course it's to-be-seen...

 

[Lerxst]

This is an excellent idea. Years ago I used to use a Tascam 'guitar trainer' which allowed you to do the opposite - take music and slow it down without changing the pitch - great for learning a complicaed guitar solo. The DSP needed to do this sort of stuff is not hard. Too bad that the combined stereo microphone/headset hardware isn't already out there. Putting mics next to speakers and doing real-time processing is being done in noise-cancellation headsets, but of course they are concerned with a different frequency regime.

My high frequency hearing is quickly deteriorating. Last fall I happened on a huge flock of (seemingly silent) waxwings. I pointed my mic at them anyway and was astonished when I looked at the recordings to see a cacophony of sound. Now I use Merlin in the field to show me what I am not hearing - this spring there have been numerous Blackburnian Warblers that it has alerted me to, for example.

 

[Andy Adcock]

I can even tell you the exact two concerts that tipped it over the edge haha.

I can tell you the exact punch up that caused my perforated left ear which causes my problems 🤛

 

[opisska]

I am young for the BF standards (40) but I am deaf as a brick above 7 kHz and diminushed hearing even lower. No problem with human speech, but I don't hear some birds Notably, European Robins make a call that I don't hear, which is quite funny sometimes. My wife is the same age but faaaar better, she even hears bats.

Recently, the tables turned, when we stood below a House Martin colony in Turkey, which was deafeningly loud for her, but just a mild chirping for me, which meant she could not hear the See-see Partridge calling in the distance at all over the noise, while I could easily (as it's a relatively low pitch). I have a very efficient high-pass filter

But most of the time she points sounds to me. We are both completely tone deaf though so we both resort often to technology anyway - we use BirdNet which can nicely ID many species, but even better, it shows the spectrograms really well and we simply learned to recognize a lot of calls from those, turning the acoustic approach back to visual, with which we are much better.

 

[Lerxst]

My ultimate audio hardware/software setup in the field would look like this: A small, wearable device that could take an external power source if desired, as well as XLR mic input. 32-bit recording, with a bright screen that displays a configurable spectrogram in (quasi-) real-time. A Merlin-type algorithm could be used if desired to tag features on the graph. Audio output with configurable 2X, 3X, or 4X frequency reduction to send to headphones.

A Raspberry Pi or Arduino w/ ADC/DAC could be the basis for a dedicated device, but then the 32-bit is out of the question for now, or for a long time... Display options are limited, too - in a perfect world, we would have a fast-refresh, color e-ink display for outdoor use.

But just doing the frequency reduction part might be a good use for the Pi. I'd rather not have to use my phone.

 

[opisska]

Do you have any specific reason for not wanting to use a phone? Because frankly, anything else is just making it harder for yourself on purpose, a smartphone is simply the most efficient small computing device in existence.

 

[Lerxst]

Do you have any specific reason for not wanting to use a phone? Because frankly, anything else is just making it harder for yourself on purpose, a smartphone is simply the most efficient small computing device in existence.

I'm not sure I could run Merlin for ongoing bird ID plus have my phone doing this real-time processing simultaneously. If it can do it all, then great, but when I am birding I am often on eBird, plus running Merlin, plus occasionaly using my Sibley app, and many times watching the weather radar for storms. That is one reason. The other is because I'm a tinkerer and I'm looking for something to do with my spare electronics.

 

[MiddleRiver]

I'm not sure I could run Merlin for ongoing bird ID plus have my phone doing this real-time processing simultaneously. If it can do it all, then great, but when I am birding I am often on eBird, plus running Merlin, plus occasionaly using my Sibley app, and many times watching the weather radar for storms. That is one reason. The other is because I'm a tinkerer and I'm looking for something to do with my spare electronics.

I have same concern but since original device is no longer avail, I’ll take what I can get!

 

[MiddleRiver]

This is an excellent idea. Years ago I used to use a Tascam 'guitar trainer' which allowed you to do the opposite - take music and slow it down without changing the pitch - great for learning a complicaed guitar solo. The DSP needed to do this sort of stuff is not hard. Too bad that the combined stereo microphone/headset hardware isn't already out there. Putting mics next to speakers and doing real-time processing is being done in noise-cancellation headsets, but of course they are concerned with a different frequency regime.

My high frequency hearing is quickly deteriorating. Last fall I happened on a huge flock of (seemingly silent) waxwings. I pointed my mic at them anyway and was astonished when I looked at the recordings to see a cacophony of sound. Now I use Merlin in the field to show me what I am not hearing - this spring there have been numerous Blackburnian Warblers that it has alerted me to, for example.

Exactly same for me. In fact it was Merlin app use that made me realize my deficit. I couldn’t hear the pre recorded MacCauley lib songs/calls :-/

 

[Lerxst]

My wife hears all the high pitches and points me towards them, too.