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October 6, 2022

• Time: 7:30AM
• Weather: 45 degrees, sunny, UV index 0, wind 3 mph SE, humidity 93%, very foggy

Location: I entered the preserve along the Marsh Trail, then took the Pond Trail across the bridge, then took the Oak Trail across the wooden planks and arrived at the Connector Trail beside Harpur Pond. For my recordings, I went from Connector Trail deeper into the woods where we did our Mobb call recordings as a class. I walked around this wooded area for my recordings and went back far enough that I reached the Saddle Trail.

There were small dense spiderwebs all over the plants on either side of the bridge.

The wooded area above Connector Trail.

I came across something very interesting as I went to my recording area. There were ribbons of thin wood wrapped around a fallen tree using pyrography - the words were burned into the ribbon of wood. There were three separate ribbons that said the following:

1. Dear EJ, I’ll be seeing your grave for the first time this December. Even though you left nearly four years ago, I still have never seen your resting place. I’ve been able to distance myself from the tragedy thus far, but I think finally seeing you might destroy me. Now you only exist in my mind through memories, no longer as a source of support or as family or as “Kuya Itchy-Boy.” How could I have let this happen? Somewhere along the line during these four years I’ve become numb. I’m scared. 
2. EJ, what do I do? Do I stay in NYC and continue to sacrifice my happiness for an unknown, uncertain future? Or do I go upstate, go back home, love my family, and happiness? Do I value my career and education over relationships? I’ve battled over my aspirations my whole life, believing that careers comes first. I chose opportunity and pride and achievement above everything. I’ve always believed that coming here would challenge that toxic battle and [     ] myself that my life is bigger than grades or recognition, but maybe it did just the opposite. I’m not saying that my career is unimportant, but won’t my career be the same even if I move back home? When I think of going home my heart skips a beat. I feel lost when I’m here, and found again when I’m with those I love. I want to leave. I have to leave. Thanks. Miss you - Katrina

3. EJ, I’m back. There are still so many thoughts stuck in my mind, and I feel as if I have a faint voice from you but still indistinguishable. You were so proud and supportive of my goals and decisions. You were the only one who was proud of me pursuing art. Would you still be proud of me now? I feel like I am letting you down. But at the same time, does it even matter? You never survived long enough to see me graduate. But maybe you’ve been watching all along. I like to think that you’ve been protecting me now like you always did when you were alive. I’m sorry that I never talked with you as much as I should have. I’m sorry I didn’t visit when you were sick. I hope you’re still proud of me. It’s okay. I wish I saw you. <3 Thank you - Katrina

Notes: For this set of recordings, I wasn’t sure what sound in particular I wanted to focus on. As I entered the preserve, I decided I wanted to try the woods between the Saddle Trail and the Connector Trail where we did the Mobb calls, because it was fairly early in the morning and I figured there might be a more talkative and diverse chorus of birds at that time. 

1. I started in the middle of the woods, sort of just walking around and turning my head to take in all the sounds and see if there was one in particular I might like to follow. At this point bird calls were few and far between, but I did hear the occasional squawk of what BirdNET identified as a blue jay (e.g. at 1:14 in the recording) and the shorter, higher frequency chirps of what was apparently a wood thrush, but BirdNET labeled this identification as “highly uncertain.” (e.g. at 2:30). There is a bit of feedback at the beginning of the first recording, but I turned the input level down a few notches and that seemed to fix the issue. This recording mainly consists of blue jay and wood thrush (?) calls.
2. For the second recording I walked deeper into the woods. I heard what I can best describe as crackling from the canopy above (around 2:35), and I tried to locate the source but I couldn’t distinguish whatever was going on up there. I also heard a lot of chirping from a wood thrush (?) during this recording. This recording wasn’t very eventful and was mostly dominated by the chirps of the wood thrush (?).

Seek identified this as Japanese Barberry.

1. For this recording I found a dry log in a grassy area nearby and sat there. While I was sitting I turned my head left and right to try and capture the sounds around me with the binaurals. Again, this recording was mostly dominated by wood thrush (?) chirps. There are some other occasional bird calls farther away, but I wasn’t able to get close enough to identify them with BirdNET. A blue jay began calling at 2:00. At about 4:27, another bird called from Harpur Pond for a few moments, but again I couldn’t isolate the song to identify it. At the end of this recording, a siren began to go off.
2. I went further into the wooded area, farther from Connector Trail and closer to Saddle Trail, at first to try and locate the wood thrushes (?) that seemed to be chattering to one another. About two minutes into the recording the siren went off again. At about 2:10, the blue jay chatter really picked up, and I tried to get closer to it to locate the bird. There was a bird trilling in the distance and a couple of other chirps.
3. For this recording I stayed in the same general location as the last, and found myself along the deer exclusion fence. I heard some insects chirping pretty clearly and the blue jay was still squawking. After a few minutes I spotted him, albeit I don’t know if it was the same one calling.

The culprit!!

At about 2:30 in the recording, a bird with a call I hadn’t heard before flew by, and BirdNET identified it as a hairy woodpecker! As I went deeper into the woods there were more bird sounds and a greater variety of calls. There was some intense cracking in the trees (e.g. 4:15) but I couldn’t identify the source. Starting at about 4:51 I heard a cawing that BirdNET identified as a red-shouldered hawk!!

1. In this recording I caught a lot of blue jay chattering starting at about 10 seconds in, so I tried to get as close as possible before they stopped. Towards the end of this recording I was able to spot a hairy woodpecker!! I got pretty close and you can hear him pecking a branch starting at about 4:00. I included a video of him at work in the drive.

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November 2, 2022 - Time: 1:00pm

Location: The abandoned car off of Anthill Trail

Notes: Unfortunately the hike up to Anthill was not kind to me today. I threw up upon reaching the blue car but I still did the recordings because I am a trouper. Unfortunately, the only recordings I took were using the contact mic on the car, because whoever gave us the shotgun mic last class left the power switch On and I didn’t realize the mic was dead until I reached the top of the trail. However, I did get some pretty good sounds using just the Tascam stereo mic. 

There was a chipmunk who was hanging out underneath the car. He kept peeking his head out and screaming at me, and running through the inside of the car to underneath the fallen car door and back. I put a video of him chirping and peeking his head out in the folder for this assignment.

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September 22, 2022

Time: 9:00PM (first parabolic recording) Location: Redwing Trail, a bit above the main trail as marked on the map:

Weather: 71 degrees Fahrenheit, mostly clear, humidity 69%, wind 8mph north

Notes: To begin with, Laura and I just walked down the Redwing Trail and kept our ears peeled for any sounds that stood out. After a few minutes of walking I heard a chirping that cut through the rest of the forest’s insect sounds, so I began to record. Using the parabolic microphone, I started to pinpoint the chirping to a small area close to the ground, but I could not for the life of me figure out where the bug was. Lucky for me, Laura spotted it!! According to Seek, it was a Great Green Bush cricket, and youtube clips of these species chirping make me pretty certain that it was what we saw and heard. At around 8:50 in the Redwing Trail Parabolic mic recording, I was able to get super close to the cricket, and at 9:03 its chirps got super loud. This part of the recording is pretty cool, in my opinion. Because we had such an interesting time with the cricket sounds, I decided to do the x/y closed mic recording in pretty much the same spot, but by then the cricket had stopped and most of the recording is other far away insect sounds overlapping. It ended up being a really enjoyable challenge trying to track the cricket in the pitch black, and I was way more excited when Laura finally spotted it than I thought it would be! I added videos of the cricket chirping and eating to the drive.