Peter Jones Wildlife blog

Ran the tape overnight again, on 12th October. Weather was fairly clear skies, with a SW wind, but with a band of rain passing thru. Results were down on the previous weekend with only a handful of birds: Redwing: 6 Song Thrush: 1 Present: Tawny Owl, Robin The biggest highlight was my new method of analysis: I now produce a single mp3 (@  128kbps), then split the file using a free tool called mp3splt. Also, by loading the next sound file as I analyse each file reduces waiting time. I'm up to 5 hours of analysis per hour now!

I've noticed a few people are trying their hand at monitoring night migration lately. It seems to be popular in the US where software is available to pick out calls. See Oldbird.org . So, with nothing to lose, I wrapped my Zoom H2N in a tight plastic bag, put the weathershield on and left it in the front garden overnight! The first problem I encountered was the size of the wav file the following morning. Can't remember how big it was, but it took audacity over half an hour to open it! Fortunately, the Zoom has a built in tool to divide files, and so I chopped the file into 1 hour chunks. These took about 5 minutes to open in Wavesurfer, and once the spectogram was focussed and showing a healthy glow of background noise it was fairly easy to fast forward/scroll through each hour segment. Lots of unwanted noise at first, but it soon became clear that the vertical signals were fireworks, doors slamming, or twigs snapping. The huge blurred low frequency areas were cars, and yobs fa...

* Self-Found Melodious Warbler finally brings 2012 to life! * Other Migrants on Scillies include Yellow-Browed Warbler, Ring Ouzel and Pied Flycatcher * Quiet Scillonian crossings still bring some good sightings Took two weeks off work and headed to the Isles of Scilly for a few days. Unlike recent trips to Shetland, which I have had to book many months in advance, camping on the Scillies can be booked a day in advance, so I had no real excuses that the weather was all wrong! Having said that, a Low Pressure that I had intended to piggyback somehow doubled back on itself, and loitered in the Irish Sea for the duration of my stay. This caused North and North West winds throughout, and no doubt reduced the number of East Coast migrants continuing West. I stayed on St.Agnes, and decided pretty early on that the outlying Isle of Gugh, joined to St.Agnes by a sandbank and cut off at high tide, was the place for me. And so it proved to be a super venue with a Melodious Warbler found on the...