Audiowings
Feb
21
2021
South America – A Nature Sound Journey, with Juan Pablo Culasso
Our March seminar will take us to South America, with nature sound recordist Juan Pablo Culasso.
Dec
5
2020
AudioWings Digital Archive Published
Over the last 20 or more years, AWSRG members have contributed recordings and articles to our journal, AudioWings.
The journals and accompanying CDs have been published (usually) biannually, and collectively contain a treasure trove of wildlife recordings and research, from this country and further afield.
Previously editions have been mailed out to financial members as they were produced, with limited back issues available. Now, all editions, from No.1 to the latest, No.42, are available online, for listening or digital download. This is the first time they’ve all been available together.
Collating the entire archive has involved members pooling their personal collections (“I’m missing the first six CDs, and who’s got the journal of Vol.8 No.1?”). My thanks to Tony, Jeff and Bob for their assistance in this, and to all past journal and CD editors, Fred, Bill, Sue, Tony and Vicki particularly.
While digitising CDs, entering track details and creating cover artwork, I’ve been aware that these recordings represent the history of the group. Past and departed members and their research interests are presented, often along with their spoken commentary, a poignant reminder for those who remember them personally.
Our AudioWings digital archive is hosted on Bandcamp, click here to view and listen. Each CD edition is available either to stream, or purchase and download, as a complete album or per track. Each download edition includes its corresponding journal in PDF format, plus recordist and equipment information.
We hope that having the complete AudioWings archive publicly available will boost the profile of the AWSRG and its history of participation and research.
Current financial members may download any editions for free. The member’s section of this site contains details of how to access free codes to enable this.
A partial index for the audio archive is also available via the member’s section. We’re currently updating it to a complete index of all recordings.
Jun
27
2020
Latest Audiowings Published
Our latest Audiowings journal has been produced, and may already have landed in your postbox.
If there’s a theme to this edition, I feel it is a concern for the health of the environment. Vicki Powys, Sue Gould and Tony Baylis each contribute articles on species that are deeply threatened; Speckled Warblers, Regent Honeyeaters and the Kroombit Tinker Frog respectively. In each case, vocalisations and behaviours are discussed in fascinating detail.
Sue also contributes a thoughtful summary of our human impact on the natural soundscape. She details a sad story of degradation to both physical and acoustic habitats, and puts our situation in this country in a global context regarding the activism and initiatives that offer positive approaches to issues.
There’s also some great tech tips. Tim Duck talks about the how to’s of live streaming, in light of his experience contributing to International Dawn Chorus Day on May 1st. Tayler Brook from the Macaulay Library introduces the functionality of Cornell Lab’s Merlin bird identification app, and also writes about how to contribute recordings to their nature sound archives. Tony also compares an Audiomoth with Songmeter and Bioacoustic Audio Recorder as part of his passive monitoring project.
As usual, the accompanying CD is packed full of remarkable listening, much of which complements the articles.
Thanks again to AWSRG’s dynamic editorial team; Sue Gould (journal) and Tony Baylis (CD, production), with John Campbell assisting and on this occasion, also penning a fine editorial.
Audio wings is posted out to paid up members, and is a benefit of joining the AWSRG. You can become a member by following the link above.
Jan
1
2020
Latest Audiowings Journal + CD
Our journal team of Sue Gould (editor), Tony Baylis (CD editor and publishing) and John Campbell (proof reading) have excelled with the latest edition of Audiowings, which was posted out prior to Christmas.
Regular readers will note an unusual cover for this edition. The bird cages suspended above Sydney’s Angel Place are a sound sculpture by Michael Thomas Hill, called ‘Forgotten Sounds’. Several of the cages have weatherproof speakers installed which play calls of birds which would once have inhabited the location, with recordings supplied by our own Fred van Gessel.
Inside the journal, and as Sue notes in her editorial, honeyeaters form a recurrent theme. The vocalisations of noisy miners are examined by Lucy Farrow, Lloyd Nielsen describes the differing calls of two races of north Qld’s graceful honeyeater, and Sue writes on three of PNG’s meledectes honeyeaters. Honeyeaters also feature in the creative contexts of the multimedia performance of ‘Where Song Began’ by Anthony Albrecht and Simone Slattery, inspired by Tim Low‘s book, plus the aformentioned ‘Forgotten Sounds’ installation.
Mar
8
2019
Latest Audiowings journal plus CD
The December 2018 issue of Audiowings has been out a while, and members will have received and devoured it well by now! However for those who haven’t, here’s a summary of what’s in our latest edition.
Nocturnal ecologist Julie-Broken Brow begins with an insightful article on how habitat and foraging ecology are related to ultrasonic microbat vocalisations.
Cetacean ecologist Jennifer Allen takes us under the sea searching for clues on how Humpback Whale songs are transferred so faithfully and quickly across vast distances from one population to another.
Sue Gould paints a broad-brush picture of Huon Bowerbird vocalisations, focusing on the overall pattern of singing behaviour and how that might relate to their social behaviour. She includes links to her online audio recordings.
Tony Baylis contributes a companion article on the birdsong of Papua New Guinea’s Huon Peninsular, focusing on vocalisations of the Emperor Bird of Paradise, with spectrograms. more »