The Macaulay Library’s Bird Song Challenge

By Macaulay Library Team 1 Apr 2020

The Macaulay Library invites you to join us for a few recording challenges from April – June. Rate audio recordings while filling your home with bird song, or record bird vocalizations near your home, or archive recordings from your personal archive—dust them off and share them with the world.  Record Rater Rate 150 or more…

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Online resources to enjoy birds from your home

By Team eBird 19 Mar 2020

In difficult moments, we believe birds continue to provide the hope and escape into nature that they always have for millions of people every day. The simple act of watching birds brings us together, even if we’re birding alone. Watching birds has also been shown to reduce stress—what other reasons do you need to keep…

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Contributor of Note: Josep del Hoyo

Contributor of Note: Josep del Hoyo

By Kathi Borgmann 9 Mar 2020

Josep del Hoyo was always fascinated with the classification of organisms, especially microorganisms, paving the way for a career in medicine. But in a rural village in Spain, where he maintained a medical practice, del Hoyo started watching birds, sparking an interest that would lead him to create one of the foremost publications in ornithology,…

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The Internet Bird Collection joins the Macaulay Library

By Kathi Borgmann 28 Feb 2020

In the early 1980s Josep del Hoyo, a doctor in a small village in Spain, decided to spend 13 months traveling around Africa to see as much wildlife as he could. Little did he know, this trip would send him on another journey that would forever change the course of his life. Before he left…

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Recordist of Note: Theodore “Ted” Parker III

Recordist of Note: Theodore “Ted” Parker III

By Guest post 19 Feb 2020

William Young, a young birder from Pennsylvania, first came across Ted Parker’s name in Kenn Kauffman’s Kingbird Highway at age eight. Young was fascinated by Parker’s birding adventures and was amazed to discover that Ted Parker grew up in the same town—Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Not only are Parker and Young from the same town, but Young…

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Recordist of Note: Valerie Heemstra

Recordist of Note: Valerie Heemstra

By Macaulay Library Team 15 Jan 2020

Valerie Heemstra has been watching birds for most of her life and although medicine won out on the career front, Valerie continues to pursue her love of birds. In fact, according to her eBird profile, Valerie retired so she could spend more time birding. Valerie has been busy birding, she has 1,143 recordings and 6,479…

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Macaulay Library’s Year in Review

By Kathi Borgmann 8 Jan 2020

In 2019, the Macaulay Library marked its 90th year of archiving natural sounds. From the first recording of a wild bird in North America on May 18, 1929 to today, our goal has always been to preserve the sounds of our world for everyone to hear. Thanks to your audio contributions and support, the Macaulay…

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Publications using media in 2019

By Team Macaulay Library 7 Jan 2020

Papers published in 2019 that used media from the Macaulay Library Amaral, B. R., T. O. Laranjeiras, M. Cohn-Haft, G. A. Leite, R. Czaban, and C. L. Rutt (2019). Major range extension for Orange-fronted Plushcrown Metopothrix aurantiaca in the central Amazon of Brazil. Bulletin of the British Ornithologists’ Club 139:99–104. Andriola, J. V. P., and…

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A Bird’s Beak is Shaped By More Than What it Eats

By Kathi Borgmann 18 Dec 2019

Darwin’s finches taught us that over time, what a bird eats can shape the size of the bird’s beak. A seminal study conducted by Peter and Rosemary Grant on Daphne in the Galapagos Islands showed that as small and soft seeds were replaced by tougher and larger seeds on Daphne, the average beak size of…

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Voices from the field

By Mariel Ortega 16 Dec 2019

I wiggled my toes, watching as my hiking boots traced patterns in the orange sand of the Australian mulga. Australia…I was in Australia! Yet, for being on the other side of the planet, Australia was less otherworldly than I expected. What did feel otherworldly was being a sound recordist. Here I was traversing the wilderness…

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