1. Geographically Distributed Acoustical Monitoring of Migrating Birds Harold Mills Bioacoustics Research Program Cornell Lab of Ornithology

2. A Few Birds Black-and-white Warbler: Common Yellowthroat: White-throated Sparrow:

3. The Birds Summer north Winter south Migrate spring and fall Many species migrate at night Stopover habitat important

4. Migration Monitoring Methods Radar Visual Acoustical

5. Acoustical Monitoring Provides species identities Automatable Often more effective than visual –yields higher counts –works in the dark

6. Long-term Goal Simultaneous radar and acoustical monitoring of bird migrations on an intercontinental scale Hundreds of geographically distributed monitoring stations Data collection over the internet

7. BirdCast Simultaneous radar, visual, and acoustical monitoring of bird migration through the Delaware river valley and Ithaca, NY Spring and Fall 2000 9 monitoring stations Data collection over the internet 27000 warbler and sparrow calls in fall

8. Monitoring Architecture Transient Detector UploaderBrowser (Client) Hard Disk Personal Computer... Monitoring Station 1 Transient Detector UploaderBrowser (Client) Hard Disk Personal Computer Monitoring Station N Internet ReceiverBrowser (Server) Database Data Repository Microphone

9. Custom designed and fabricated Includes amplifier/filter Remotely powered for ease of maintenance Well-protected against water and mechanical damage About $150 for parts

10. Microphone Front Back

11. Detection Algorithm Source Audio Samples Make Spectrogram Measure Total Inband Power Estimate Inband Noise Power, Compare to Total Inband Power Identify Transients Spectrogram Parameters Input Parameters Detection Frequency Band Noise Power Estimation Parameters, Detection Threshold Minimum Event Separation, Min/Max Transient Duration samplesspectrapowersbitstransients The transient detector locates concentrations of energy in a specified frequency band with durations in a specified range. It saves located transients in AIFF or WAV audio files.

12. Uploader/Receiver Allow detected transients to be uploaded from monitoring stations to central database Use Java Remote Method Invocation (RMI) for communication over the Internet Receiver enters each uploaded transient into database and makes JPEG spectrograms for use by browser

13. Browser Allows all users to view and hear transients stored in database Allows selected users to classify transients Uses Java RMI for communication over the Internet

14. Browser

15. Results

16. The Future: More Automation Mass-producible microphones Automatic classification “Live” monitoring stations that upload transients as they are detected

17. Acknowledgements Programming: –Christina Ahrens –Jason Adaska –Jason Rohrer Database and Web Site: –BirdSource Classification: –Chris Tessaglia-Hymes Station Operation: –Edward Burton –Don Dunsmore –Laurie Goodrich –Charles Hetzel –Steve Kelling –David Mizrahi –Kenneth Rosenberg