Birds

Bird Research
Flight Call Research at Purchase Knob
Altitude: approx. 5,000 feet

In the spring and fall, huge numbers of birds migrate at night while we sleep. Many of these migrants make very brief calls while they are flying and these flight calls can be recorded and later analyzed to determine their identity.

This recording technique has been developed by Oldbird along with the software to detect and separate flight calls from extraneous sounds. With regular recording, we hope to begin to determine some of the migratory movements of birds at our recording station. Every survey technique has pros and cons but an advantage of this technique is the recording of fly over species that would never have landed in forest or grass habitat and the detection of skulking species that are never easy to find.

In cooperation with the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and the Appalachian Highlands Science Learning Center at Purchase Knob, we established a recording station at Purchase Knob and recorded birds in the fall of 2002 and 2003.

In 2002, the station ran from September 16 to October 31, operating from approximately 7:00 PM to 3:00 AM. In 2003, the station ran from approximately 10:30 PM to 6:30 AM, usually six nights a week from August 1 to October 31. Numerous flight calls were recorded and some of those results are presented here.

To hear flight calls, please click here.

Appalachian Highlands Science Learning Center

Old Bird
Old Bird is dedicated to facilitating acoustic monitoring of avian night flight calls. Its Web site offers sound detection software and flight call identification.

Syrinx
Syrinx is a Windows 98/2000/XP sound recording/editing/playback program developed by John Burt and designed specifically for field and lab research in animal acoustic communication.