I just read an interesting article on the next stage in the UK owl survey. Participants in the survey will soon "call the owls using 64 phones connected to loudspeakers and microphones spread throughout the woods".

This as before the same bird could be counted multiple times but now the microphones can detect the location that the sound is coming from, so it is easier to distinguish between them.

This post was last modified: 28-02-2007 08:37 AM by Kingfisher.

Triangulation? This sounds like a big project. One may as well count the owls by hand whilst stringing up the microphones and loudspeakers...

Do you have a link?

Kingfisher

If the owls are in a forest they are going to be very difficult to count, you could walk through the woods for hours without seeing one but you know they are there.

True, I was thinking about the fact that the volunteers would be 'calling' the owls to locate them--what is to prevent the volunteers from counting calls made by other volunteers?  It's not unheard of to have birders 'call' in certain birds, only to discover that they have called in a fellow birdwatcher .

That's why I asked about the link--I'm curious how large an area this will cover, and how the microphones will be set up.

Kingfisher