Tag Archives: conference

Nature Sounds Society Workshop (Part 2)

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Sandhill Cranes

Of course, the biggest part of the workshop was getting out to appreciate nature sounds! We were fortunate to have great weather for the morning recording sessions- the heat didn’t really take over until late morning when we were mostly done.  For more about the sessions at the field station, check out Part 1.

 

 

Eric listening to the dawn chorus

The first full day saw us waking up at 2:45AM to drive from the field station to Sierra Valley on the other side of the pass. Our caravan parked along a gravel road in a marshy area at about “nautical twilight”- that time before sunrise when the sky lightens enough to accurately discern the horizon line. We spread out along the road as the eerie pulsing “winnow” of Wilson’s snipe sounded out of the darkness. Gradually the sky became lighter, and we were treated to a whole range of sounds including bullfrogs, sandhill cranes, 3 kinds of blackbirds, meadowlarks, cows, and one of the most powerful and prolonged coyote chorus that I’ve ever heard. I can only speak for myself, but it took every ounce of restraint not ruin 18 people’s sound recordings by yelling “Holy crap that was amazing!” (we were specifically warned not to do this the night before)

A Brewer's Blackbird pauses on a fence line in Sierra Valley

Our next stop was a one-lane bridge a little farther up the road. The bridge hosts a large colony of cliff swallows, so we were treated to the sights and sounds of hundreds of swallows darting and wheeling around us.

Cliff Swallows, Sierra Valley

After a quick stop to eat (coffee, breakfast sandwiches, fruit, homemade muffins and granola- the organizers spared no effort to keep us happy and powered up!), we headed to a forest meadow site called Carmen Valley. It was getting hot and summer insect sounds started to replace bird vocalizations before too long, although we did see some of the typical Sierra Nevada birds like White-headed Woodpecker, Lincoln Sparrow, and Mountain Chickadee. Most exciting was surprising a young bear with unusually blonde fur. The bear was definitely more scared of us than we were of it.

Brewer's Blackbird

The next morning we woke up at the leisurely hour of 3:15 AM to check out the dawn chorus at the Yuba Pass summit just a few miles up the road from the field station. The mosquitoes finally found us up here, but even so, it was well worth it to hear the forest come alive. There’s not much that beats hearing the ethereal flute-like song of hermit thrushes in a towering forest or the sounds of a sapsucker’s drumming echoing among the trunks. It was also a treat to see several flocks of Evening Grosbeaks along the side of the road.

Dawn light, Yuba Pass Summit

Male Evening Grosbeak

Beautiful scenery, great wildlife, and intellectual and aesthetic stimulation. What could be better than that! I definitely hope to return one day, and would recommend others with similar interests in nature sounds and soundscapes to check out the Nature Sounds Society and the field recording workshop in particular.

Nature Sounds Society Workshop (Part 1)

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Alan La Pointe recording in Sierra Valley

I’ve spent a decade recording sage-grouse pops and whistles, and yet this weekend I felt like a novice. And that’s a good thing! I had the amazing good fortune to be invited to give a talk at the 2017 Nature Sounds Society Field Recording Workshop. This was one of the first times I’ve gotten to interact with serious nature recordists. I’m talking about people who sweat the details of getting the gear and technique right to capture what it feels like to be somewhere else. I’ll freely admit that I’m much more of a data collector, and it was wonderful to spend time with these folks who seem to bring together the best parts of aesthetics, technology, and love of nature.

The workshop, the 33rd of its kind, was held at the Yuba Pass field campus of San Francisco State University (north of Truckee, California). This is a gorgeous field station nestled among towering pines near a rushing river in the Sierra Nevadas. We slept on surprisingly comfortable cots in large tents on raised platforms. Meals and lectures were held in a 2-story main building where our class would mingle with other station users and staff. We had, in my opinion, a perfect combination of amenities: Hot water– Check. Flush toilets– Check. Cell service– Not Available.

Looking up at the Yuba Pass Field Campus

In the evenings, organizers Dan Dugan and Sharon Perry along with tech consultants Greg Weddig and Steve Sergeant helped us test our recording gear to prepare for the next morning. We were also invited to test out and borrow spare equipment. Mauricio Shrader, a birding-by-ear instructor, provided helpful tutorials, on what to listen for while out in the field.

For me, it was really valuable to hear so many perspectives on nature sound recording. Steve Seargent led a roundtable discussion about how best to set up a relationship with a state or national park and provide valuable services in documenting their soundscapes. Jim Metzner, host of Pulse of the Planet, shared several enchanting clips from his decades of travel and interviews, and gave his perspective on what it meant to capture an audience’s attention and imagination with sound. I spoke about the role of sound in sage-grouse biology and conservation.

As someone who last shopped for audio gear more than a decade ago, the hands on demonstrations were particularly interesting for me. Dan, Greg, and Steve set up a selection of more than a dozen different kinds of microphones, from omni to shotgun to parabolas, along with several stereo rigs. It was so cool to be able to put on headphones and test them all out. Sharon led the apparently famous “Build your own windscreen” workshop too. I’ve now got a shaggy shotgun windscreen that looks like a cross between an opossum and a giant hotdog!

Lupines dot the ground around the field campus buildings

Of course most of the best parts were getting out to some beautiful spots to record. I’ll talk about that in Part 2.

Trait Variability review now available online early

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Some papers bloom quickly from concept to publication, while others resemble periodic cicadas, spending years growing in the shadows before finally emerging into the light of day many years later. An example of the former is the technical review that our collaborator Jen Forbey is leading. This paper is the outcome of our workshop at the International Grouse Symposium in Iceland last summer, and our revisions are nearing completion.

As an example of the latter, take the review on within-individual trait variability that is now available online early in Advances in the Study of Behavior. Gail first conceived of this paper as a postdoctoral scholar at Cornell, and the paper became a framework for some of our early grant proposals with the sage-grouse. At that point we turned our attention to empirical work with the grouse, and developing a more specific framework for interactions on the lek that became it’s own review. Now, with the help of Gail’s former graduate student (and before that, grouse intern), Conor Taff, we’ve finally finished!

Laterality paper is out!

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Science is sometimes slow- case in point our recently published paper on left-right side biases in social behaviors in the sage grouse. The idea for this paper first surfaced in 2010 at the International Ornithological Congress in Campos do Jordao in Brazil. Gail and I saw a couple of plenary talks related to visual fields and left/right biases. From that we had a year or so of data collection from our videos, then about 2 years of cycles of submitting a manuscript, waiting for reviews, revising, resubmitting, etc etc etc. Feels great to finally have this out!

Thanks again to Emily, Michelle, Jennifer and Tawny who were undergraduates who helped figure out how to sample and measure the side biases, and Melissa (former Masters student) who spearheaded our collection of agonistic behaviors.

Link to paper

Abstract:

Lateral biases in behaviours are common across animals. Greater laterality may be beneficial if it allows for more efficient neural processing, yet few studies have considered the possible importance of indi- vidual variation in lateral biases in wild animals, particularly for social behaviours. We examined lateral biases in lekking greater sage-grouse, Centrocercus urophasianus, a species in which males show lateral orientations during aggressive encounters and courtship interactions. For aggression, we found no sig- nificant lateral bias in fights, but when examining another agonistic behaviour, the side-to-side facing- past encounter, we found a left-eye bias but only in males that successfully mated with females. For courtship behaviour, we found that successfully mating males were more strongly lateralized than nonmating males, but the direction of laterality depended on whether males were using their binocular frontal field (left-eye bias) or monocular lateral hemifield (right-eye bias). Bias depended on social context as well; nonmating males showed a bias in courtship orientation only when far from the female. Our results reveal a complex pattern of laterality depending on the mating success of the male, his behaviour and the social environment in which he is acting. We found support for the hypothesis that greater laterality may be beneficial, although the mechanism for this relationship in this species remains unknown.

International Grouse Symposium: Post-Conference Trip

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Olafur Nielsen our guide

It would be a shame to head all the way to Iceland and then not make it outside of the “metropolis” of Reykjavik (Iceland’s capital has two-thirds of the nation’s population, but that’s only 200k people!) Thankfully I was able to spend 4 extra days after the IGS concluded as part of a conference-organized field trip to the north of the country. The trip was led by Ólafur Nielsen who also organized the conference. This probably goes without saying, but while the National Science Foundation did pay for my attendance at the IGS and pre-conference workshop, NSF did not pay for the extra play time (even though this was an actual conference activity with something of a focus on grouse biology).

The scenery anywhere in Iceland is just breathtaking (provided you get good weather). I won’t rehash everything we saw, but I can direct you to a flickr album with some photos from the trip. As with any tour, there’s a balance of getting to spend lots of time in each place versus getting to see many different things. The photographer in me was a little frustrated at times that we were often rushed, but looking back on it I can’t see anything that I would have skipped. Well, maybe the stops at the barren eroded “denuded” areas, but even those were interesting when we got to learn about the somewhat controversial soil conservation programs that were going on.

Rock Ptarmigan

In addition to finally getting to see the “real” Iceland, it was really special to have Oli tell us more about his research on the Rock Ptarmigan and their main predator- the Gyrfalcon. We went to a number of different study sites, including Gyrfalcon nest and roost sites and areas the ptarmigan use during different seasons. We encountered Ptarmigan at several places and got very good looks. They were mostly still in their summer plumage, but were beginning to molt into the white winter phenotype. We also saw 3 or 4 Gyrfalcons during the trip. Not a life bird for me, but definitely a bird that quickens the pulse every time I see one.

The tour included a full 40 folks from the conference. Our apartment during the IGS was a half-hour walk from the conference center– this cut down a bit on the post-conference socializing (for me, anyway). It was great to be able to get to know more people during trip. Wildlife biologists tend to be really fun people, especially when everyone is relaxed in the outdoors!