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I've been reading a couple of articles about how people have documented the loss of wildlife in forests, when foresting takes its toll. And with great interest too.

Lately in my local area, an old lake that used to be the biggest one in Denmark, are being re established, almost to its original size. And it made me think that i could do something like i read in those articles, only reversed. As the lake gets bigger, the more the bird and wildlife will grow too, theoretically.

I'm not aiming at the wildlife on the lake, but the wildlife around it. So my plan is to record half an hour or so, every 14 days / 30 days, what my time allows me. It would be nice if i had the time to reach the 14 day plan, but if all goes wrong, i have a 30 day limit where a recording have to be made.

So here's my question; i found a great spot about 1 km away from the lake in its current state, but next year the lake will be much bigger and be about 500m from the spot i've picked.

Is that an ideal spot?

Hi there,

a bit like watching the movement of the hands in a clock... but nice idea anyway. Are you ready to record for a few years without giving up?

D

dobroide wrote:
Hi there,

a bit like watching the movement of the hands in a clock... but nice idea anyway. Are you ready to record for a few years without giving up?

D

Well i really can't tell if i am, but no one else is going to do it. And since i'm the only one in this part of the country, that's recording, i might as well give it a try.

Great Idea, go for it. Why so far from the expected new shoreline ?

I've looked around the lake for a better spot, but as things look right now, there really isn't any. Unless I'm ready for a 45 minute walk to get there, and 45 minutes on top of that, to get to the car, when the recording is done.

So 500 meters from the expected shoreline is somewhat ok, I think. The thing is, that I have to use the same spot every time. Otherwise I don't think the comparison of the recordings will be valid. And having in mind that I'm not interested in a recording of the on-water-wildlife, but rather the surrounding wildlife, such as deers, foxes, etc... and of course birds as well, hope this spot is reasonable and hopefully not pointless.

Hi Kyster

I am not an expert by any means.
I suspect you will find a lot more seasonal variation than variation due to the lake growing in size.

How long would the recordings be?
Time of day for the recording? - Different species, for example birds, call at different times. SO the species that might be heard on a recording at 6am could be very different from the ones heard on the same spot at 9am or a 12pm.

I guess local schools or national Ecological / Environment / Biology organizations could be interested in this resource - Especially if they have to do nothing and can then just access the recordings. So might be worth contacting some of those organizations by email and saying you will be posting the recordings at Freesound - They may even offer some valuable advice about good places to pick and what animal sounds you might pickup.

Maybe some students could use the recordings to identify the sounds of specific animals. - To that effect, Soundcloud could be better equiped as it allows timeline comments... Don't know if that functionality will be implemented at Freesound anytime soon.

Good luck, this sounds like a very interesting project with potentially considerable scientific value.

Some more thoughts...

Birds and insects are probably the most likely subjects to appear in your recordings. Walking animals (dear, foxes, hedghogs and others might walk nearby but will be difficult to identify by the sound they make whilst moving. These animals are more quiet (i.e., lesss 'vocal' than birds)

At 500-1000m from the lake you will probably not get a lot of birds that live on water (ducks, swans, etc) as these will live much closer to the lake if not actually on it.
At this sort of distance, I believe you might notice a change (i.e. increase in numbers and species) of birds that feed on insects (and would benefit from the increase in water insects such as dragonflies), but these birds would still nest in the trees.
A local birdwatchers society would potentially be very interested in your recordings and may also be able to classify some of the birds that you record.

AlienXXX wrote:
Hi Kyster

I am not an expert by any means.
I suspect you will find a lot more seasonal variation than variation due to the lake growing in size.

How long would the recordings be?
Time of day for the recording? - Different species, for example birds, call at different times. SO the species that might be heard on a recording at 6am could be very different from the ones heard on the same spot at 9am or a 12pm.

I guess local schools or national Ecological / Environment / Biology organizations could be interested in this resource - Especially if they have to do nothing and can then just access the recordings. So might be worth contacting some of those organizations by email and saying you will be posting the recordings at Freesound - They may even offer some valuable advice about good places to pick and what animal sounds you might pickup.

Maybe some students could use the recordings to identify the sounds of specific animals. - To that effect, Soundcloud could be better equiped as it allows timeline comments... Don't know if that functionality will be implemented at Freesound anytime soon.

Good luck, this sounds like a very interesting project with potentially considerable scientific value.

The recordings would be just about 25 minutes, and i aim to record about an hour or two before sundown. That's simply the timeframe possible to me.

You've got a good point about contacting the different organizations, i think i'll do that. Of course everything i record will be available on freesound, once i've uploaded it (which i currently cant for some reason). I mean to put everything together in a pack.

As for what might end up on the recordings, i certainly hope to get some four legged creatures too. This monday i saw a fox just 100 meters away from the mics, so it's not impossible. And from the looks of it, i think the fox had cubs within close range.

I figured that the bird society would appreciate the recordings, and that's one of many reasons why i do it.

Thanks for your input

Hi Kyster,

How great this plan is. I like it realy. I always?? edit as mutch info on my field-recordings as possible. I had a lot of mails people ask me WHY. An just you reason is THE reason. I wkow all the spots ans conditions at the time of recording. If I go back ones, I have all the data.

My data most of the time; location (geotag), wind, wind speed, wind direction (the most important! because the sound is realy different than), temperature, date and time, equipment, mic direction, mic hight, other maby not relevant info for you never know. Maby humidity? What did you edit on the sound, recording speed and compression, eg. 48Khx 24bit deep (look at it if you compress in lossless flac for long recordings.

I work the other way around. I just record, upload, and see at a later recording if there is some difference. Your way is more proffecional. I like that very much.

two recording at the same spot.
http://www.freesound.org/people/klankbeeld/sounds/119418/
http://www.freesound.org/people/klankbeeld/sounds/158892/

I know not enough info in it, but hear the difference.
You made me aware to ed more info on my recordings.

Thanks for that.

I hope to listen to your first recording soon.....

Which lake is it BTW , Arresø ?

Benboncan wrote:
Which lake is it BTW , Arresø ?

Nope, Filsø. Southwest of Denmark, very close to the shore.

Tak

Benboncan wrote:
Tak

klankbeeld wrote:
Hi Kyster,

How great this plan is. I like it realy. I always?? edit as mutch info on my field-recordings as possible. I had a lot of mails people ask me WHY. An just you reason is THE reason. I wkow all the spots ans conditions at the time of recording. If I go back ones, I have all the data.

My data most of the time; location (geotag), wind, wind speed, wind direction (the most important! because the sound is realy different than), temperature, date and time, equipment, mic direction, mic hight, other maby not relevant info for you never know. Maby humidity? What did you edit on the sound, recording speed and compression, eg. 48Khx 24bit deep (look at it if you compress in lossless flac for long recordings.

I work the other way around. I just record, upload, and see at a later recording if there is some difference. Your way is more proffecional. I like that very much.

two recording at the same spot.
http://www.freesound.org/people/klankbeeld/sounds/119418/
http://www.freesound.org/people/klankbeeld/sounds/158892/

I know not enough info in it, but hear the difference.
You made me aware to ed more info on my recordings.

Thanks for that.

I hope to listen to your first recording soon.....

Well i don't think of my idea as professional at all, it's just out of ordinary curiosity i'm doing it... at least that was what started it in the first place.

On the contrary i think a lot of us can learn a lot of your tagging. I don't recall seing any tagging so well done, as when i listen to your sounds.

As i wrote before, this came from the articles people linked to, here on freesound. Especially one about foresting in the rainforest called for my attention. I don't recall who wrote it at this moment, but it was about a new kind of foresting, where only single trees were cut down, and not entire fields. But field recordings still indicated that wildlife was shrinking in those areas.

So i thought id do it the other way around, just out of curiosity but as Alienxxx wrote, i should contact interested organisations too.

I've searched for some articles on the Filsø project, but sadly they are only available in danish. I'm posting them anyway, and assume those interested, knows how google translate works (yes i know it's flawed, but it's the best i can do ).

http://www.dn.dk/Default.aspx?ID=22202
http://www.jv.dk/artikel/938072:Varde--Fiilsoe-projekt-en-stjernestund-i-dansk-natur

Hi Kyster,

Realy great recording. I think this is good spot. try to record with South wind to get rid of the most traffic-noise. In my experience recording in the field I know that the wind direction is the most important in environmental-noise.
I perfer 0.5-2bft wind toward the traffic, South in your situation. Thats alsow where the new nature will come.

I hope you will continu these recordings on that same spot. (including all the data/tags

regards

klankbeeld wrote:
Hi Kyster,

Realy great recording. I think this is good spot. try to record with South wind to get rid of the most traffic-noise. In my experience recording in the field I know that the wind direction is the most important in environmental-noise.
I perfer 0.5-2bft wind toward the traffic, South in your situation. Thats alsow where the new nature will come.

I hope you will continu these recordings on that same spot. (including all the data/tags

regards

I'm a little uncomfortable with the spot. First of all, it's way too far from the lake, and where it'll be when the water rises. Second, it way too close to the road. Too much traffic noise, and i think that sort of ruins the ability of being able to hear wildlife better than the civilization.

As i mentioned, i've got a much better spot for the following recordings, and i think that will be the spot i'll persue for the rest of the time. But perhaps i ought to return to the first spot every now and then, just to get a "second opinion" of the project.

Kyster wrote:

I'm a little uncomfortable with the spot. First of all, it's way too far from the lake, and where it'll be when the water rises. Second, it way too close to the road. Too much traffic noise, and i think that sort of ruins the ability of being able to hear wildlife better than the civilization.

As i mentioned, i've got a much better spot for the following recordings, and i think that will be the spot i'll persue for the rest of the time. But perhaps i ought to return to the first spot every now and then, just to get a "second opinion" of the project.

I wait for the nex recording. Succes with it.

If everything goes according to plan, it'll be uploaded tonight, and tagged, commented and geotagged tomorrow

But it's the other spot though.