Allen Island Trip report for 18 May 2017

Participants—Cathy and Louis Bevier

It was finally a warm sunny day, with a southerly wind encouraging migrating birds to the island. We expected and experienced an increase in bird diversity both in life and through vocalizations captured on the sound meters. Louis continues to post his bird lists on ebird.org (see below) where he reports 68 species from his morning walk. I spent some time recording a few birds calling while I retrieved both sound meters. Back at the bunkhouse I downloaded two weeks of hourly recordings, assessed some of the results, and re-deployed the meters to new areas. One unit was placed by a pond where green frogs were spotted. This will capture frog calls, in addition to migrating or breeding birds, in anticipation of the May 31 arrival of the amphibian health project crew. The other unit was placed on the northwest corner of the island, near a wetland where we heard lots of birds. The Kaleidoscope Pro software (Wildlife Acoustics) is working very well and I’m able to analyze full sets of recordings now. I will continue to learn about the full capacity of this software and am designing some exercises for students to use in labs in my courses next academic year.

Louis’s eBird lists:

Boat out: https://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist/S36960735

Morning walk: https://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist/S36960731

Afternoon walk:https://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist/S36967554