I thought it might be fun to post this here, as Spring is really making a triumphal entry into the local environment, wiring and re-wiring with its ozone, its electric moist fresh air and needed rain all of the various flora and fauna for the much hotter months to come.

Yesterday night’s early evening walk brought the two of us to the site where a bobcat had struggled and played with its captured ground squirrel. The various paw prints and the left-behind scrap of fur from the ground squirrel explained the story to us as clearly as any dispatch from the AP.

But the tale I want to bring to FDL readers is a bit bigger. It involves the Amazon sound engineer, Bernie Krauss, who has been recording the sounds of the birds and other wild life in the Amazon rain forests. As the birds of places to the north, now migrate down and across my homestead here in Northern California, I think of this man’s efforts to preserve such a wonderful array of bird songs (And screeches, skat songs, jazz, and the occasional chirp.)

I am trying to be of good spirit and not take in so much of the underbelly of Krauss’ work and messages: that the environment is losing every day, as more of our wilderness areas are being auctioned off to the forces of both big and small time agriculture.

Instead today, I choose to enjoy all the feathered beings who are migrating past my house, chirping away in the rain forest above my home. And to enjoy also these recordings of birds in more exotic places:

http://www.loe.org/shows/segments.html?programID=12-P13-00011&segmentID=7

On edit: Michigan State University has a collection of bird calls and bird songs from contributors spread out across the world. (Staff at Michigan Sate first became interested in doing this due to Krauss’ project.) Should you wish to peruse and browse this collection, and find whatever birds you already know and like, or try on some sounds from creatures you’d never heard of before, try this URL:

http://avocet.zoology.msu.edu/recordings

Specifically if you wish to hear the charming Brisbane Australian bird — Spiny-cheeked Honeyeater, Acanthagenys rufogularis, go here:

http://avocet.zoology.msu.edu/recordings/3497