You might know what an , but do you know the sound an ostrich chick makes as it's trying to ? There's now a place online where you can find out.
On January 15, the announced that it had converted its sound archive into a digital catalog that anyone can click. “Our audio collection is the largest and the oldest in the world,” Macaulay Library director Mike Webster. “Now, its also the
most accessible.”
The institution said the new digital archive will help expert and amateur birders and other naturalists train, offer video and audio editors a place specific sounds, and allow the library to assemble a larger collection. “Now that weve digitized the previously archived analog recordings, the
archival team is focusing on new material from amateur and professional
recordists from around the world to really, truly build the
collection,” said .
Here's a bit more about the sounds that have been collected and digitized, with a selection of some of the best recordings and a look at the numbers.
150,000: Digital audio recordings now accessible online.
7,513: Total run time, in hours, of all the clips.
9,000: Species represented. Most of the clips come from birds, but other animals represented include frogs, whales, primates, and a .
1929: Year of the oldest analog recordinga now online.
12: Time it took archivists to convert the analog recordings to digital files, in years.
10: Data storage required to house the sounds, in terabytes,an amount that will increase over time.
For more, check out the , or listen to a selection of favorite sounds gathered by the library staff to celebrate the launch of the digital archive.
:
Cornell Lab founder Arthur Allen was a pioneer in sound recording. On a
spring day in 1929 he recorded this Song Sparrow sounding much as they
do today.
: This clip from 1966 records the sounds of an Ostrich chick while it is still inside the eggand the researchers as they watch.
: A dawn chorus in tropical Queensland, Australia, is bursting at the seams with warbles, squeals, whistles, booms, and hoots.
: The indri, a lemur with a voice that is part moan, part jazz clarinet.
: The incomparable voice of a Common Loon on an Adirondacks lake in 1992.
: Birds-of-paradise make some amazing soundsheres the UFO-sound of a Curl-crested Manucode in New Guinea.
Most likely to be mistaken for your dog: Three walrus pups bellowing in an uncanny canine cacophony.
: The staccato hammering sounds of a walrus under water.
Joe Spring