A Trip Around the World with Bird Sounds: What Their Song is All About!

We will start our evening at 7:00 with a presentation by world renowned audio/naturalist, Martyn Stewart, who specializes in location and field recordings, mostly for natural history documentaries.  He will be talking about recording bird songs and the complexity of vocalizations. It’s a kind of indoor "birding by ear."  Martyn will lead us through vocalizations of songbirds and how they use their syrinx to create their songs. We will listen to the different dialects of the species from the East coast to the Pacific Northwest.

For more than 35 years, Martyn has recorded the natural Soundscape, some of which can be found on www.naturesound.org.  His sounds represent over 29 countries, 3500 bird vocalizations and countless animals.  Historically Martyn’s work included television, location and studio operations; drama, features, and documentaries; 16mm and videotape.  Now he does what he loves most - natural history recordings.

Martyn collaborated with Subhanker Banerjee and others on the CD/book combination, Arctic Wings. He also produced the bird sounds CD for Paul Bannick's new book and has just released a new birding CD of the birds of the Rio Grande Valley in Texas.  These are available through his on-line site, http://www.naturesound.org.

During his recent work in Alaska, Martyn was a member of the Wild Sanctuary research team for The Arctic SoundScape Project in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and a member of the Wild Sanctuary research team for the Katmai NP Project.

At 7:30 p.m. we will present our 2009 Brian Gershon Scholarship Award, have some brief chapter announcements and then break for refreshments and socializing.  Treat yourselves to pictures of our fun and rewarding activities at our Activity Fair - enroll in a Birding class – join a Conservation task force – renew your Membership. 

At 8:15 we rejoin Martyn Stewart to hear the rest of his fascinating Bird Sounds presentation.  As a special treat, he will show the tools he uses in his profession, from directional microphones for capturing species to omnidirectional microphones to capture the dawn choruses.

Please join us Thursday, May 28 for Martyn Stewart’s lovely bird vocalizations and equipment displays. The presentation is free and open to the public. Invite a friend or anyone who is interested in the sounds of nature and what it all means.

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