As one of the 'beginners' here I greatly appreciate the recent posts from Chris and Andrew. As I expressed to Chris recently, as a beginner with poor recording equipment its often challenging to know whether I have made the correct ID or if there is another species or group I hadn't even considered that sounds or 'looks' the same. Having a list of very similar and somewhat similar species would be very helpful. The information to that effect on the Evans/O'brien CD has been invaluable for me--THANKS! I also think Andrew's idea of occasionally posting samples sans identify for beginners to test out their skills on is a great idea.
I wonder also if some of us with better coding skills and a library of recordings could assemble a 'thumbnail' style database of spectrograms. This would allow beginners to more easily compare the different calls visually. Even better might be a database searchable by characteristics. For example, the user inputs the duration, frequency and/or other characteristics (buzzy, descending, etc) and the program produces a list of possible candidates. A tool like this would make this emerging science a bit more accessible to the novice (and would make it possible for me to introduce the subject to my high school students in a way that would not completely overwhelm them). Dan Poalillo Northern NJ -- NFC-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NFC_WELCOME http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NFC_RULES http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NFC-L_SubscribeConfigurationLeave.htm ARCHIVES: 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/maillist.html 2) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/NFC-L 3) http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/NFCL.html Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --
