I've learned the hard way that there is an enormous difference between microSD cards in the amount of power they need. When it comes to putting audio recorders out in nature, that matters a lot.

As an example, I was just comparing my latest AudioMoth results with SanDisk Extreme 64GB cards compared with Samsung Pro Plus 128 GB cards last year.

In the same device, with the same dawn-dusk daytime recording settings, on the same three fully-charged Powerex rechargeable batteries, the Samsung card recorded for four days (11 GB) before flattening the batteries, while the SanDisk cards recorded for 12 days (44 GB) before the flattening the batteries.

Given that it takes a lot of time for me to get to these remote sites to deploy these recorders, this makes a big difference to how much data I get.

#AudioMoth #AudioRecorder #birds #BirdMonitoring #EcologicalMonitoring #SDcards #EcologyMethods

My Port Hills audio recorders seem to have detected a ruru (morepork) in Kennedy's Bush. This morning I listened to the sections of recording that BirdNet had identified with moderate certainty as being riflemen (no, these were baby korimako), pīpipi (no, these were a combination of riroriro and piwakawaka singing at once), and ruru. Surprisingly, the ruru seem to be ruru, just five detections in total over a 10 day stretch from Kennedy's Bush.

I've just posted them on #iNaturalist, where they're the first ruru from the Port Hills. I recently heard that someone had heard a ruru at Living Springs, and eBird has one record, without a recording, from Hackthorne Road from 2023. I'm not aware of any ruru in Kennedys Bush or elsewhere in the Port Hills.

It's promising, if true. Oddly, my owl was singing in the day time. Perhaps it's a young bird travelling.

Have a listen and please disagree if you know of another local bird that would make similar calls.

https://inaturalist.nz/observations?subview=table&verifiable=any&field:Same%20specimen%20over%20time=332064177

#birds #owls #nz #Ninox #ruru #moreport #Christchurch #BirdNet #AudioMoth #EcologicalMonitoring #AudioMonitoring

A quick note on the van #BattyBirdPi: My custom waterproof case for the #AudioMoth worked just fine, including the experiment with using a PTFE membrane for mushroom cultivation to keep water out while still letting sound in. This is (more or less) the same material as the Gore stickers that come with the waterproof case, just bigger.

The one thing that I did just notice is that 3 of the 4 case screws fell out - yikes! Time for some threadlock on those...

Anyone have experience recording 192k audio and then pitching it down to try and bring super high frequency stuff into human-audible range? Any traps? I could just do this in Audacity right?

I have an #Audiomoth to record with…

#FieldRecording

Today's make is a lasercut case for the #Audiomoth microphone.

Since the battybirdpi didn't work well at all when it was next to the pi, but worked (somewhat) better when separated, I needed to make a waterproof(-ish) case for the audiomoth. This will still have to connect to the pi with a microUSB cable, which is inevitably awkward.

I ended up heavily modifying their lasercut case and desoldering the AA battery holder. Instead of their suggested neoprene, I'm using EVA foam as gaskets.

I'm off to bed but my computer cranks on. It's using #BirdNet to ID all the bird songs recorded by our garden's #AudioMoth from the first half of the week, while an R script is hooked into AWS to transcribe the 772 geotagged audio notes I made today on my monthly 12 km run up from the city through Victoria Park and around the native forest on Sugarloaf peak.

Some parts of our crazy Big Tech timeline I'm OK with. 😄

#wildcounts #EcologicalMonitoring #nz