More from Macaulay

The recordists from Macaulay Library are still in Alaska. Gerritt's excellent travel blog continues (although extended stays away from internet have reduced posting frequency), and is now continued by a blog from Ben Clock on the video side of things. I may have posted this before, but Ed Scholes' Bird-of-paradise video work is now on Macaulay's online archive here.

A Big Year for Macaulay Library

My part-time job of the past two years has archiving bird footage for Macaulay Library's video collection. Macaulay is a storehouse of bird behavior and sounds captured on audio and video. Sound recording has been with the Lab since its founding, and more recently the video collection has seen major expansions. The Library is now in the midst of a Big Year, a massive drive to fill in the gaps in the Library's collections of North American birds. Already this year there have been recording and filming trips to Florida and South Texas. Currently the recordists from the library are up in Alaska. There are also trips to the boreal northeast in the works. Here are a few links to peruse:

Gerritt Vyn's blog from Alaska. Gerritt has been posting regularly with beautiful pictures from Nome and Barrow.

Mike Andersen's photos. To complement Gerritt's blog.

The recordists.

Peruse the Big Year website for sound and video samples, and also check out Animal Behavior Archive, Macaulay's web archive for its video and sound collection.

Turtle Songs of North America

Check out this They Might Be Giants spoof of a nature documentary: Turtle Songs of North America (login: tmbg, password: thespinesurfs).

In a related note, it seems someone has found an Eastern Fighting Turtle (although they mis-identified it as the more common Killer Tortoise), and has documented one attacking their preferred prey: cats.