How’s The Water: February 1, 2013

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How’s The Water: February 1, 2013

Written by Patricia Aitken Friday, 01 February 2013 00:00

Winter has arrived with a vengeance. The forecast is for warmer weather to return, but it is currently 14°. At this time, it is perhaps nice to stay indoors and prepare for the warmer weather ahead by listening to sounds of the natural world. The Cornell Lab of Ornithology is a tremendous resource not only to birders, but to all those people interested in the natural world.

The Cornell Lab’s Macaulay Library is the world’s largest and oldest archive of natural sounds and video. Its mission is “to collect and preserve recordings of each species’ behavior and natural history, to facilitate the ability of others to collect and preserve such recordings, and to actively promote the use of these recordings for diverse purposes spanning scientific research, education, conservation, and the arts.” The library has completed an effort to fully digitize its 150,000 audio recordings, which represents close to 9,000 species. The primary emphasis is on birds, but the lab also has sounds of whales, primates, great cats, frogs and other animals.

The database is easily searchable by species name. In its press release, Cornell mentioned some of the highlights of the library. Among them are the very earliest recording, made of a Song Sparrow in 1929, and the sound made by an ostrich chick while still in the egg! If you are yearning for the tropics, there is a recording of the dawn chorus in Queensland, Australia. The call of a common loon on an Adirondack lake makes me eager to visit my family’s camp, where I have heard the loons calling many times just like the calls in the library.

Many of the sounds almost seem like they are not issued by an animal. The call of an indri (a lemur) is described as “Best candidate to appear on a John Coltrane record.” And what does a Curl-crested Manucode sound like? What is a Curl-crested Manucode? The Macaulay Library can be found at http://macaulaylibrary.org. The Cornell Lab is at http://www.birds.cornell.edu. Both of these sites are tremendous resources for those interested in the the natural world.

News

Bridge To Somewhere

Wednesday, 22 May 2013 00:00

The road from Oyster Bay to Bayville will be open by the Fourth of July weekend, an engineer told local civic groups May 16, but disagreements arose over plans for finishing the road.

The sea wall, which was damaged during Hurricane Sandy, resulting in the closure of West Shore Road “is almost complete,” Donna Boyle, project engineer for Nassau County, told a joint meeting of the Oyster Bay Civic Association and the East Norwich Civic Association at the Italian American Citizens Club, Oyster Bay.

Sports

Nick Carbone Helps Fight Alzheimer’s

Thursday, 16 May 2013 00:00

According to the Alzheimer’s Foundation of America, more than five million Americans are suffering with Alzheimer’s disease, the sixth leading cause of death in the United States.

Troubled by these statistics and personally affected, Long Islander and NBA draftee Gordon Thomas founded the Alzheimer’s All-Star Basketball Classic Committee, a group of professionals dedicated to raising awareness of Alzheimer’s and dementia.