Help with nocturnal bird sound...

[Alan]

Originally Posted by Jonny

You don't live anywhere near Boddie do you Clive ?. He has a habit of getting up in the night and screeching..................Jon

Hey Jon, don't knock it, till you try it!

[Clive_S]

Originally Posted by Gill Catton

Listen to this for comparison, the tone is slightly different but the duration of the burst and the type of sound is similar.
http://www.garden-birds.co.uk/birds/sounds/barn_owl.mp3

Ok, I've come over all scientific, so here's a spectrogram comparison of the 'mystery' call followed by the above barn owl call. (X-axis is time in seconds and Y-axis is frequency in Hz).

http://www.goldswift.co.uk/Sound/spectogram.jpg

The call duration and base frequency are certainly close, but the known call doesn't show the rising note and has some higher frequency components. Still, I'm coming round to the BO theory - just need them to do it again and catch the culprits in my lamplight.... Just hope I don't see a naked Boddie....

[Jonny]

Originally Posted by Alan

Hey Jon, don't knock it, till you try it!

Who says I haven't tried it, I am always trying to imitate bird song. I know its not me though, as I have not been to norfolk before...........Jon

[Gill Catton]

Originally Posted by Clive_S

Ok, I've come over all scientific, so here's a spectrogram comparison of the 'mystery' call followed by the above barn owl call. (X-axis is time in seconds and Y-axis is frequency in Hz).

http://www.goldswift.co.uk/Sound/spectogram.jpg

The call duration and base frequency are certainly close, but the known call doesn't show the rising note and has some higher frequency components. Still, I'm coming round to the BO theory - just need them to do it again and catch the culprits in my lamplight.... Just hope I don't see a naked Boddie....

No scientific is good it's a brilliant way to clarify things. Are the variations strong enough to discount the species or are they weak enough to be down to different individual birds or different genders?
I'm also not sure that Nightjars churr in flight - but then the unknown call is not a typical churr.....

[romillyh]

Sorry to resuscitate this thread – only just seen it in a google search. But here's a link to a clip that should settle the matter once and for all! I knew I had exactly this sound somewhere. So clip has three parts:

1st part: Clive_S's original recording, amplified a bit
2nd part: Barn Owl clip from Chouettes et hiboux CD, Nashvert/LPO, France
3rd part: Nightjar, my own recording

Clip's 37 sec long, 300 kb mono. It's on my website as I'm too junior to be allowed to post attachments here! Click on this to play direct:

http://www.godsownclay.com/Recording...2Bnightjar.mp3

romillyh

[Dan Salter]

Looks like romillyh may have settled it?

clip one and two are identical to my ears

well done

im just curious if a barn owl would do this call in flight or when perched as u said it was moving about in the sky?.

[wellies101]

I'm baffled, I've heard nightjar a few times this summer on wisley and ockham common in surrey and I think they sound like this soundbyte, but "churrrr" for much longer periods. The fact the sound is being emmitted during flight is the bit that intrigues me. If we ruled out nightjar and barn owl, does anyone else have any ideas?

[romillyh]

Well, I don't know. That Nightjar sang continuously for just short of 2 minutes, and of course I didn't include the whole thing. Here's a link to a stereo sample, the same I took the clip from, that's been cut down to about 1 minute. In this longer clip I've cut out the 15 seconds it took me to locate him with the dish and some of the middle so that I could include the echo at the end when the bird suddenly stopped. The clip is 1.2 Mb.

http://www.godsownclay.com/Natural_H.../Nightjar2.mp3

The bird was 40-50 yards away and recorded with a dish.

As to the Barn Owl clips, I really don't see how one could get anything more similar.

romillyh

[Dan Salter]

Romillyh i dont believe wellies is replying to your post which as far as im concerned settles this matter i believe he listened to the original post clip and has replied...

at least i hope so?

Dan

[romillyh]

Good thinking - hadn't occurred to me. Thread's getting rather long! romillyh

[wellies101]

romillyn, dan, sorry. I was reffering to the original clip yeah. But romillyh, I agree with dan, I think you clip has settled it, barn owl. Great discussion this one, are we all in agreement its a barn owl then?

[carolw66]

Hello, I have been reading your thread regarding the nocturnal bird noises with interest. I live near Aldershot and have been hearing a bird very close by during the hours of around 1-4 in the morning. I wondered how you guys were able to record the noise you heard as I would like to record mine, if I hear it again, to play to you to see what you think it might be! I have assumed that it can only be a barn owl but would like confirmation. If I hang out of the bedroom window when the bird is around it sounds as though it is flying around when making the noise but it doesn't actually fly over my back garden unfortunately! I live in a development of new houses just outside Aldershot and would be surprised that an owl would be hunting here as they hunt over open country. I would be interested in your thoughts please. Many thanks.

[romillyh]

Can't help too much as I use equipment that you wouldn't want to buy just to do this! You may be able to do something with a portable music player that has an internal mic, though often the quality is poor (noisy recording masking the sound you want, specially if far away). Then your options are to sit at the window waiting to turn on when you hear the bird, leave the recorder running in the window while you sleep, or go out to where the bird usually calls and wait there with a finger on the button!

You'd need some way of getting the recordings onto a computer and some sound editing software to make mp3 or wav clips to post.

Simpler alternative may be to download some barn owl clips and play them until the sound's in your head and listen again. The wheezing barny screech is very distinctive.

[carolw66]

Blimey! Thank you for your reply. I think that your suggestion of listening to the clips is the way forward!

Thanks again.