Sound recording workshops in Australia (2025)

By Macaulay Library Team 10 Jul 2025

Interested in recording the sounds of birds and other wildlife?   The Macaulay Library at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology is excited to host two sound recording workshops in Australia this coming spring! One workshop will be held in Adelaide, and the other in Perth. These three-day workshops are intended to teach the basics of…

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Recordist of Note: Davis Finch

Recordist of Note: Davis Finch

By Charles Duncan 19 Nov 2024

Sound recordist, tour leader, and dedicated note-keeper, Davis W. Finch passed away this October at age 86 in Exeter, New Hampshire after a brief illness. Beginning with his recording of Yellow-olive Flatbill in Brazil in 1984, Davis contributed over 1,600 recordings to the Macaulay Library, with a focus on Brazil, Venezuela, and Guyana. Indeed, Davis…

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Sound recording workshops in Australia (2024)

By Jay McGowan 16 Oct 2024

Interested in recording the sounds of birds and other wildlife?   The Macaulay Library at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology is excited to host two sound recording workshops in Australia this upcoming spring! One workshop will be held near Geelong, and the other near Brisbane. These three-day workshops are intended to teach the basics of…

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A Celebration of Sound: Macaulay Library Reaches 2 Million Recordings

A Celebration of Sound: Macaulay Library Reaches 2 Million Recordings

By Team eBird 19 Dec 2023

Over the last decade, you have helped the Cornell Lab’s Macaulay Library grow tremendously and recently we reached an amazing milestone. Thanks to more than 38,403 recordists around the world, the Macaulay Library now holds more than 2 million audio recordings. These assets have supplied invaluable information for research, documented extinct species in perpetuity, powered…

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Recordist of Note: David L. Ross, Jr.

Recordist of Note: David L. Ross, Jr.

By Matthew Medler 27 Sep 2022

In 1992, David L. Ross, Jr. and the Cornell Lab of Ornithology released a groundbreaking audio production: Voices of the Cloud Forest, a stereo audio journey through a day in Costa Rica’s Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve. Now, on the 30th anniversary of the original release of Voices of the Cloud Forest, the Macaulay Library is…

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The Macaulay Library Reaches New Milestones

By Macaulay Library Team 6 Sep 2022

Over the last decade, you have helped the Macaulay Library grow tremendously and recently we reached two amazing milestones. Thanks to birders, photographers, and recordists, the Macaulay Library now holds more than 1.5 million audio recordings and 40 million photos. All of those assets power incredible research, birding tools, and more. The 40 millionth photo…

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Alarm Calls Everyone Knows: an Innate Response to Unfamiliar Calls

By Kathi Borgmann 15 Aug 2022

Our environment is filled with sounds from bird songs to sirens, from music to barking dogs. As humans we’ve mostly learned what each sound means and we respond appropriately—we may seek shelter when we hear a siren and run to grab an ice cream when we hear the ice-cream truck. Animals also respond to auditory…

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Recordist of Note: Robert C. Stein

By Kathi Borgmann 11 Jul 2022

We’ve all seen a flycatcher or, let’s be honest, five that left us puzzled…was that an Alder Flycatcher or a Willow Flycatcher? If only that flycatcher would have uttered a few notes, then we’d have a chance at figuring out which species we spotted. We have Robert C. Stein to thank for his pioneering work…

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Photos and Social Media Help Scientists Identify a Hybrid Fairywren

By Macaulay Library Team 27 May 2022

In 2015, the Macaulay Library began accepting photos of birds alongside eBird checklists with the hopes of creating a curated collection of bird photos to help people learn more about birds. Now the Macaulay Library contains more than 36 million photos of more than 10,500 species. Scientists are now starting to tap the collection of…

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Global Big Day 2022: a global celebration of birds

By Team eBird 19 May 2022

Birds are a source of inspiration and joy. On Saturday, 14 May, people on every continent joined together to celebrate birds for Global Big Day on World Migratory Bird Day—and also celebrated the 20th anniversary of eBird! Twenty years after eBird’s launch, more than 51,000 people spanning 201 countries set incredible new records for the…

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