Project Information By Andrew (06/10/13 19:36:17)
Interspecies Audio Interactions
Unfortunately, this weekend, I was unable to make it back up to the Animal Park in Big Bear Lake like I had originally planned. I wanted to go back to the animal park and play sounds I had recorded from various animals and play them to completely different species. While I played these sounds, I would record the animals reactions with video. Instead of doing that this weekend I did more research on the sounds made by some of the animals that I’m working with for this project. Valentine and Alaska are two of the Bald Eagles I recorded sounds from at the Big Bear Animal Park so I did more research on the hearing and calls of Bald Eagles. American Bald Eagles do not have vocal chords, but instead use their “syrinx”, which is a bone chamber placed where the windpipe divides into the lungs in order to make their staccato- like calls. The Bald Eagles high pitched shrills and strong chirping are used in order to reinforce the relationship with their mate and also to warn all other animals that this is their territory. Found with a broken wing in 2007, Tremor, the burrowing owl, was one of my favorite species to record because he made many strange sounds and movements during recording. Burrowing Owls are appropriately named because they live in burrows underground. These burrows are often times already dug out by their previous inhabitants such as prairie dogs and squirrels. When I first started recording Tremor, he was hidden away in a hole and made rattling sounds very close to that of a rattle snake. This sound is to ward off any animal trying to take over the burrow. This rattling sound is pretty effective because it even made me believe there was also a snake in the burrow, and I freaked out a little standing about a foot away from it. When Tremor finally came out of the hole he started making chattering calls that were fast and sounded like a pretty obnoxious laugh. Like most owls, the Burrowing Owl’s hearing is about ten times better than humans. This is so they can hear and find their prey during the night. One of the most intriguing animals at the Big Bear Animal Park was Aurora the Arctic Fox. She was found by animal control in April 2012 on the rooftop of a house in Beverly Hills and brought to the animal park for rehabilitation. Aurora was pretty shy at first, but fortunately I was able to get some calls out of her after a few hours of sitting there. Aurora’s calls sounded like a broken up howl. Not like a wolf howl, but more like a coyote’s lighter pitched howl. It’s not a very pleasant sound at all and Aurora’s calls did become pretty loud at one point. The Arctic Fox has a very keen sense of hearing which they use to find and listen to prey beneath the surface of the snow and ice. When they locate the small animals, they pounce through the snow to grab the prey with their teeth and feet.
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