frequently asked questions
Below are some common questions you may have about this site. If your question is not listed here, please post your question to the forum.
- What's this site about?
- How does the scoring of bird sounds work?
- How do I use the Identify page?
- Scoring takes too much time! Help!
- Why should I register as a member?
- What are the Terms of Use for the recordings on this website?
- Can I revise/delete the sounds afterwards?
- I want to share a lot of sounds. Uploading takes ages!
- I want to use the sounds for a publication. May I do that?
- I have found a song with a wrong ID. How can we change this?
- How does the community search on the Identify page work?
- What's this site about?
Perhaps you have shared our frustration of sifting through your sound collection without ever finding the bird you recorded. Although an enormous amount of recordings are available on tape or even CDROM, they usually do not allow you to set up a sensible search strategy, in other words they are not true guides. This is odd, because of the great importance of songs in clinching ID's and in locating species in forests.The classification of birds in field guides is based on shared characteristics and usually leads to a reasonably fast convergence to a species, or genus, even in the tropics. For plants, elaborate decision trees exist that lead you to a certain species(group). For some areas such as Europe completely different decision trees even exist, allowing several independent lines of attack.
The idea here is to do something similar for bird sounds. A set of simple characteristics has been chosen: the only instrument needed to determine them is a (stop)watch. More sophisticated and interesting ways of characterising and comparing the sounds exist, and we are planning to develop those here as time progresses, hopefully with your help.
What these characteristics will do is limit the number of choices that you have, and more importantly bring together sounds that somehow sound similar, regardless of whether the species producing them are related or not.
- How does the scoring of bird sounds work?
For the time being the following 6 characteristics are required:pitch
This is really a synonym for frequency, the number of vibrations per second in the sound. Here we only require qualitative information about the pitch/frequency, not about the absolute value, which would force you to make a sonogram. the information asked is basically whether the frequency is constant or not in the call.In case of doubt (e.g. "almost" constant) do not specify at first and subsequently check out the options
volume
The physical meaning here is the amplitude of the wave, related to the power in it. Similar as in the case of the pitch, you are only required to give a qualitative description of the volume, whether it is level, decreasing, increasing or both in the course of the call. Giving a quantitative value is not very useful anyway, since it is quite impossible to compare calls based on apparent volume. Distance to the birds, orientation of bird with respect to microphone and type of microphone may vary, and recording settings may interfere as well.length
This is of course just the length of the call. Or not? When you think about it, it is a tricky one, as bird sounds may have a hierarchical character. For example, the song of a tapaculo may consist of a long series of well spaced notes, that in turn consist of well spaced (but a lot closer) notes, that in turn possess a certain frequency. One sometimes encounters the following coding of these levels: frequency, syllable, phrase. Phrases may be repeated at more or less constant intervals, leading to another level in the hierarchy, and depending on the time of day, and indeed time of year the song may show characteristic changes as well.
Length here refers to phrases, in principle. Some ambiguity will probably rise though, so when searching, keep this in mind.number of notes
Number of notes is then one level below, or number of "syllables" in the "phrase". In case of doubt (as e.g for a tapaculo) play with the definition of the phrase in your sound. First use the longest characteristic timescale you can find, and define the notes as the next smallest. If that leads to nothing, redefine the note as the phrase, define a new note and try again.speed
The definition of the speed meant here is the number of notes per second. (see the explanation of "number of notes" and "length"). Again, you are only required to indicate whether that speed is constant (level), decreasing (decelerating), increasing (accelerating), or both (in either order).variable
If the bird sings a call or songs multiple times, does it sings the same phrase over and over again, or does it change? The answer may be clear for birds with very constant song patterns, such as antbirds or woodcreepers, or for those with varied songs, such as thrushes. For others it may be puzzling what to fill out. Many parrots for instance may give the same harsh cry for quite some time, but may on the whole have a large song repertoire. Wrens are also somewhat in the middle, with characteristic phrases that are sung repeatedly, but to say they are 'not variable' sounds counter-intuitive. - How do I use the Identify page?
When using the above six scores on the Identify page and you are not certain of what to put in, don't put anything in first, just leave the CHOOSE field unchanged. Later on you can decide to try the ones that you are hesitating about one by one and see whether it has any effect on the returned results. Remember, nothing is definitive about the results, so do play around. - Scoring takes too much time! Help!
Submitting sounds to the website may not be as much work as you think. Most time is in preparing the sound files, and finding the Scientific names names from this complete list. (If you use Firefox as your browser, you can use the excellent 'forward find' function, which finds words in a page while you type! This speeds up the process of finding the scientific names enormously.) The scoring of the sound files is then just a matter of minutes.If you have a lot of sounds to share, then read on below.
- Why should I register as a member?
As a member you can actively participate in this site: you can extend the database of bird recordings with your own by uploading files. You can manage the files, revise the data you have submitted, and take them away later if you wish. - What are the Terms of Use for the recordings on this website?
The Terms of Use can be read in detail here. It is important reading material for both recordists and users alike! - Can I revise/delete the sounds afterwards?
Yes. All data of recordings that you have entered into the database may be revised by the owner of that recording. You may also delete this recording if you wish. - I want to share a lot of sounds. Uploading takes ages!
If you have a lot of recordings that you want to share, it takes a long time to use the forms. Instead, make an Excel spreadsheet to fill out all the data, as described here. Then send a zip-file with all the recordings, and the Excel spreadheet that provides all the data to Bob Planqué or Willem-Pier Vellinga. If you want to transfer the recordings by offering them via your own webpage, that's no problem, but let us know. If you'd like to send a CD with the recordings by post, please send us an email. You cannot send tapes. All data should be digital and edited into separate tracks. - I want to use the sounds for a publication. May I do that?
It is a good idea to read the creative commons license that applies to the recordings. The full legal text is also reachable from that page. You will find that many "uses" are actually possible without contacting the recordists. The license basically states that you have to mention the recordist and the license always when you use a recording on a site. For commercial use or if you want to adapt the recording somehow, you have to contact the recordists. Here and here are a few forum discussions on the subject that may be useful if you want to use the recordings in specific cases such as scientific publications. - I have found a song with a wrong ID. How can we change this?
Use the [discuss] tag when browsing/viewing the recording in question. This will post a thread with the catalogue number on the forum and send an e-mail notification to the recordist. If you wish to contact the owner of the recording directly; we maintain a list with e-mail addresses of all recordists that participate in this site.
