Catching the Bug – web book

The Sound Approach team are Arnoud van den Berg, Magnus Robb, Killian Mullarney, Dick Forsman, René Pop and me, Mark Constantine. While the book is written in the first person it is a concentrated mix of the thoughts and opinions of us all. However, any mistakes are all mine.

For this book we enlisted Nick Hopper, who apart from writing and taking many of the photos, also conducted a series of new studies of waterbirds, gulls and corvids especially for our book. The Sound Approach would like to thank Claire, for keeping him sane during the process.

Gilbert White included his friends’ letters in The natural history and antiquities of Selborne (White 1789); I’m sure he reproduced their words faithfully. We have made our own interpretations of our birders’ actions, conversations and emails, and even sprinkled them with a little folklore. Nick and I would like to thank all the bird pub visitors mentioned in the book and ask for forgiveness for the liberties taken, but would point out that we were constantly encouraged by Shaun Robson, who gave his support, collected the photographs of birders for publication and even allowed us to publish stories about him even when there was only a grain of truth remaining. Shaun is also the benign dictator of Out & About, a Dorset-based internet group that grew from a small, local bird newsline. We’ve borrowed freely from the opinions and debates expressed in that forum and would like to thank all the contributors. We thank Mo Constantine who read or had read to her endless drafts, and accompanied Mark throughout the stories told and the writing process.

The Sound Approach would like to single out Ian Alexander who, besides giving us an environmental master class, explained the various agencies and government initiatives. Where we’ve used his opinions we have quoted him. Hamish Murray advised on the management of nature reserves and especially the sounds birds make when migrating. Dave Chown, Neil Gartshore and James Lidster all assisted Nick in our surveys; James also acted as an enthusiastic guide and kindly helped us with the gull chapter. Andy Musgrove kindly listened to and commented on our criticisms of WeBS. Furthermore, we thank Pete Miles of Dorset Oysters who advised on the clams and crabs of the harbor sea bed. Neil Johnson and Chris Thain helped with the history and geography of Brownsea Island. We thank Cecilia Bosman who through the years assisted Arnoud on most of his travels, and materialised this book with Anneke Boekhoudt from Lampenistenpers, Amsterdam, and Mientje Petrus from Em-space, Amstelveen. Spencer Burge, Matt Fairhall, Kerry Fletcher and Paul Morton assisted in various ways.

The Sound Approach would also like to thank Eloisa Matheu of Alosa, who supplied recordings that helped to clarify the geographical variation of Dartford Warbler sounds across Iberia; STRIX, Carlos and Cláudia Cruz and Paulo Monteiro for help with logistics in Portugal; and Pim Wolf who provided accommodation and good company for many a migration recording session in Zeeland, the Netherlands, and also allowed us to use recordings of a first-winter Siberian Chiffchaff making sounds we have not recorded ourselves. Peter Nuyten also supplied a sound recording, and we appreciate all the help he has given with our equipment. Eugene Archer gave invaluable assistance when Magnus and Killian went to study Dartford Warblers in France, Vasil Ananian directed Magnus and René to the best sites for chiffchaffs in Armenia and Brian Cresswell kindly shared his knowledge of European Nightjar sounds. We are grateful to all the people who assisted Arnoud to record sounds of Siberian Chiffchaffs in Siberia, especially Sergey Gashkov from Tomsk State University. We thank José Luis Copete, Pierre-André Crochet, Łukasz Ławicki, Richard Millington and Ricardo Gutiérrez for timely responses to questions on cormorants’ distribution, and Klas Strandberg from Telinga microphones for his continuous support.

The recordings are stereo, digital and were recorded where possible using a SASS or stereo ambient sampling system that gives the listener the impression of being present at the scene. For this reason, they are best listened to on headphones. Rather than use words where we wished to interpret the sounds, we used sonagrams, which we made using Raven Pro 1.3. Sonagrams are just graphic interpretations of sound. They are best approached in the same way you would look at a stocks and shares graph. Just as the shares’ rise or fall is shown by the rise and fall of a line on a graph, on sonagrams the higher or lower the trace appears above the baseline, the higher or lower pitched it sounds. And in both cases the horizontal axis represents time. Just as the success or failure of stocks is tracked over time from left to right, in sonagrams the duration of a sound is represented by the horizontal span of a trace. 

If you are unfamiliar with sonagrams, start with these three simple songs (CD1-01 to CD1-03). Listen to the recordings and follow the notes on the page. 

Introduction: Tuesday night 9pm

Chapter 1: And did those feet in ancient times
ice ages, climate, history

Chapter 2: Neptune’s poultry yard…
wildfowlers, hunting

Chapter 3: Marooned
environmental threats, first nature reserves

Chapter 4: If that’s a Bibby’s Warbler I’ll eat my hat
sounds and plumages of Dartford Warblers in western Europe

Chapter 5: Where was I?
twitching in the old days

Chapter 6: Paradise regained
history, identification and taxonomy of cormorants

Chapter 7: The return of the natives
Little Egrets and other former rarities

Chapter 8: If that’s a Cabot’s Tern I’ll eat my…
Sandwich and other terns

Chapter 9: ‘appiness
vagrant gulls at tip

Chapter 10: Lady Muck
Yellow-legged, Mediterranean and other gulls

Chapter 11: Blinded by adrenalin
seawatching

Chapter 12: Nearer to God than Godlingston
sounds of European Nightjar

Chapter 13: The glory of migration
watching passage of passerines

Chapter 14: A flock of birds forever in flight
identification of migration calls of passerines

Chapter 15: With this ring
ringing, rare warblers and Aquatic Warbler

Chapter 16: Drab
sounds and taxonomy of Siberian Chiffchaff

Chapter 17: The great Western
wader watching and Western Sandpiper

Chapter 18: How much is that doggie in the window?
bird boat, Brownsea, Bittern and Otters

Chapter 19: Come hell or high water
wetland birds, tides and water levels 

Chapter 20: I love it when a plan comes together
wetland bird counts, Sika Deer

Chapter 21: Dancing with the moonlit knight
sounds and plumages of Woodlark

Chapter 22: Bill Oddie, Bill Oddie, rub your beard on my body
corvids, winkling

Chapter 23: An obsessive Hobby
sounds and plumages of Hobby

Chapter 24: The silent spring of the Anthropocene
farming and disappearing birds

Chapter 25: Completely cuckoo
sounds of Common Cuckoos

Chapter 26: A new England
cold weather movements, bird race

Chapter 27: It’s all right Mark, we believe you
bird listing, sounds of snipes

Postcript: The Rosy Glow
bird listers looking back from the future

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