Connections

Links to other websites
General, birdsong, cetaceans, land mammals, insects, noise & wildlife, space

Mailing lists, newsgroups

Reading - some reference works

Analysing sound: slowing down sounds & sonagrams

Skylark song (Alauda arvensis)

Blackbird song (Turdus merula)

General bioacoustic websites

The Acoustical Society of America: Animal Bioacoustics
For a formal introduction to the subject and an overview of its study areas this site provides a basic starting point. What is bioacoustics? People (page by Eddie Mercado). The ASA Technical Committee. Bioacoustics-L email list. Careers in bioacoustics. Resources for bioacoustics.

Bioacoustics Journal
Academic journal with articles covering all aspects of the subject. The website has a directory of contents of all past issues and the forth-coming issue.

International Bio-Acoustic Council
IBAC homepage: contact and conference information. Biophon 1: the IBAC newsletter.

The Wildlife Section of the National Sound Archive
Part of the British Library, this dept's site has information on its services, wildlife recording techniques and should soon include a link to Cadenza, the NSA's database of recordings.

CNR: the Dutch bioacoustical association
Useful contact for recording in Holland. Excellent links.

Nature Sounds Society
USA (based on western side) Society concerned with the recording and appreciation of nature sound. The Nature Sounds Society is a world-wide organization whose principal purpose is to encourage the preservation, appreciation and creative use of natural sounds. The Society promotes education on the technological, scientific and aesthetic aspects of nature sounds through its programs and a diverse network of contacts.

Listening to Nature
The California Library of Natural Sounds presents a soundwalk across California. To get the best out of this site you'll need the flash 4 plug-in installed; then you'll be greeted by an elephant seal.

Bioacoustics at St.Andrews University
Homepage for The Bird and Mammal Sound Communication research group led by Peter Slater. With links to pages with summaries of current research projects: song learning in zebra finches, the function of duetting in birds, the energetics of bird song, vocal behaviour in grey seals, vocal variation in killer whales and the effects of noise on blackbird song.

Bioacoustics Research Programme
Part of the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology; with research projects on whales, birds & elephants.
Canary software for the Mac.

Centre for Bioacoustics
Based at the University of Pavia: Interdisciplinary Center for Bioacoustics and Environmental Research. Good info on subject (esp. cetaceans).

The Auditory Neuroscience Laboratory
Research into auditory processing in the perception of sound, located in the Department of Physiology, at the University of Sydney but involves researchers drawn from a number of Departments and Faculties across the University and other institutions. A multi-disciplinary research group aimed at understanding the mechanisms by which the auditory system encodes sound direction and the perception of sound localisation. Including bioacoustic page.

The music of sound
WhyFiles' pages exploring music in nature. With threads following Mozart's Muse, Nature's Orchestra and Ancient Music.

Acoustic Ecology
The website of the World Forum for Acoustic Ecology provides a mass of information and links on anything connected with sound environments. For those who enjoy losing themselves in a verbal jungle.

Wildlife Sound Recording Society
Website with information about this UK-based society.

Birdsong

Wharton: European birds: songs and sonagrams
From the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania a good, straightforward site with a species search by scientific, common English and Italian names. Over 400 sonagrams link to .wav files (each c.125k).

Raimund Specht's Animal Sound Recordings
Has a wide selection of sonagrams and wav files of European bird species, and an assortment of other animals - bats, amphibeans and a vole sp. Good links. Information for avisoft sonagraphic software.

Bird Study at the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology
Cornell's ornithology homepage.

Birdsong links
Lots of links - 118k page.

Bird songs by Frans van der Veen
Site with Real Audio sounds of various birds, including some rare and unusual species.

Crossbill vocabulary
From the Dept of Ornithology, American Museum of Natural History. The purpose of this web site is to help professional and amateur ornithologists compare acoustic differences among North American red crossbills.

Australian bird songs
A selection of calls (mp3) of some characteristic Australian bird species.

Birdsong mnemonics
A guide to north American species by Tom Lorenzin. Mainly phonetic transcriptions (kitty-waaak for Black-legged Kittiwake) and descriptions of the sound, but some paraphrasing (please, please, please squeeeeeeze for Black-throated Blue Warbler).

Bird behaviour
From Biological Sciences at the University of Paisley: Biomedia - Zoology Museum. Many pages on bird behaviour include this page on birdsong with .wav files of selected species.

Namibia Bioacoustic Research Centre
Based in the National Museum of Namibia this site has information on their collection of AV material, including recordings of over 1200 bird species.

Insects

Insect Sound World
A fun site with pages in English from Kazuyuki Hashimoto with songs of crickets and katydids from Japan. Sounds in .wav format and some fine pictures of insects.

Insect Songs and Information: Matija's bioacoustic pages
From Prof.Dr.Matija Gogala at the Natural Hiostory Museum of Slovenia, Matija's bioacoustic pages with RealAudio and .au files of insect sounds. With links to a summary of paper titled BETWEEN BIOACOUSTICS AND MUSIC. With Asian and Slovenian Cicadas, sonagrams and pictures of cicadas.
Main topics [of study]: acoustic and vibrational communication in insects, faunistic studies of Heteroptera and Homoptera, previously active also in electrophysiological, ethological and hystological investigation of photoreception and orientation of insects, interested also in colours and colour change in insects.

Defensive behaviour to ultrasonic stimulation in butterflies
University of Toronto: Modern-day butterflies 'invented' by bats
The evolutionary development of modern-day butterflies was so profoundly influenced by insect-eating bats that they could be credited with "inventing" day-flight in butterflies, suggests one University of Toronto researcher. In a paper to be published in the Jan. 20 edition of Nature, Carleton University biology post-doctoral student Jayne Yack and University of Toronto at Mississauga zoology professor James Fullard studied ultrasonic hearing in nocturnal butterflies. They then examined the anatomies and behaviours of day-flying butterflies. The scientists suggest that bats have had such an impact on day- and night-flying butterflies that their defence and communication systems have specifically evolved to protect them from these natural predators.

Hoverfly studies
This is the homesite of Dr Francis Gilbert, Senior Lecturer in Ecology School of Life and Environmental Sciences, Nottingham University. May provide a base for finding out about the sounds produced by hoverflies.

Military noise and wildlife
Links to a paper - Effects of Military Noise on Wildlife: A Literature Review. This review examines research on the effects on wildlife of noise associated with military training, particularly vehicle, artillery, helicopter, and blast noise. Physical (acoustic) and biological principles are reviewed along with population-level effects resulting from noise exposure.

The effects of noise on wildlife
Conference notes from August 2000 in Labrador.

Natural Radio
Stephen P. McGreevy site.

Earthsounds sent with Voyager
You can find out and listen to (.wav files) the sounds that were sent out with the voyager mission heading out of our solar system: including music, wind, F111, animals, morse code and a kiss.

Networking: mailing lists

For those academically interested in bioacoustics: Send an email to listproc@cornell.edu
With the following command in the body of your email message: subscribe BIOACOUSTICS-L

For wildlife sound recordists: naturerecordists

For acoustic ecology: Send an email to Majordomo@sfu.ca
With the following command in the body of your email message: subscribe acoustic-ecology

For sound art, soundscape studies and ambient recording:
UK & Ireland Soundscape Community - (UKISC) discussion list

For birds in the UK: try the newsgroup uk.rec.birdwatching

Miscellaneous Bibliography

Catchpole, C.K. & Slater, P.J.B. (1995) Bird Song (Biological themes and variations). Cambridge UP.

Krebs, J.R. & Davies, N.B. (1993) An introduction to behavioural ecology. Blackwell SP. First pub 1981.

Bailey, W.J. (1991) Acoustic Behaviour of Insects. Chapman & Hall

Bright, M. (1984) Animal Language. BBC

Kroodsma, D.E. & Miller, E.H. (eds) (1982) Acoustic Communication in Birds. New York: Academic Press.

Jellis, R. (1977) Bird Sounds and their Meaning. BBC, London.

Thielke, G. (1975) Bird Sounds. Michegan (trans. from german).

Hartshorne, C. (1973) Born to sing. An interpretation and world survey of bird song. Indiana UP.

Thorpe, W.H. (1972) Duetting and antiphonal song in birds - its extent and significance. Behaviour Monograph Supplement 18.

Hinde, R.A.ed. (1969) Bird Vocalisations: Their Relations to Current Problems in Biology and Psychology. Essays presented to W.H.Thorpe. Cambridge UP.

Sebeok, T.A.ed. (1968) Animal Communication: Techniques of Study and Research. Bloomington and London.

Greenewalt, C.H. (1968) Bird Song: Acoustics and Physiology. Washington DC.

Frings, H. and Frings, M. (1964) Animal Communication. New York.

Armstrong, E.A. (1963) A Study of Bird Song. OUP. (New ed? 1973 New York: Dover).

Busnel, R.G.,ed. (1963) Acoustic Behaviour of Animals. Amsterdam and London.

Thorpe, W.H. (1961) Bird-Song: the biology of vocal communication and expression in birds. Cambridge UP. Cambridge monographs in experimental biology 12.

Huxley, J. and Koch, L. (1938) Animal Language. London.

Nicholson, E.M. & Koch, L. (1936) Songs of wild birds. Witherby.