Olympic Project Nest Area - 2021 Long Term Recorder Project Analysis Report

[BobbyO]

Boys and Girls, here's first dibs on the soon to be released 'lite' version of the Nest Area analysis that i finished for 2021.

 

This report prior to today, has only been viewed internally by Olympic Project members and a very selective few others.

 

As mentioned, it's the 'lite' version that i just wanted to release due to time restrictions and going forward, i need to analyze both weather conditions and moon phase correlations among other things, when time is a little easier to come by for me.

 

Anyway, it's important to me that BFF members get a first look at it and i hope this thread can ignite productive conversation among us.

 

It's important to note that all Bird and Mammal recordings analyzed were clarified by multiple people using the MaCaulay Library of Sound.

 

As and when i make edits due to people pointing out grammatical errors etc, i'll update the report and post the most recent edit here as we go along.

 

The recording project is continuing and recording as i write and i can tell you that 2022 and the first Winter that has been recorded so far, has been extremely productive and Winter was the season that was most interesting to us due to the timing of both the original Nests found (February) and the 2020 new 'under construction' Nest find (February).

 

If anybody has any questions at all on anything, please add to the thread and i'll try my best to answer them, checking in to the thread on a minimum of every Monday and Tuesday at least. I'd be really interested on peoples thoughts and/or experiences of the possible Coyote Warning/Locator call correlations that were found.

 

Sharing is caring, enjoy !

 

Edit : If anyone wants this on PDF, just message me your email address and i'll send it across soonest.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[BC witness]

Great breakdown, Bobby O

[Huntster]

Absolutely excellent study! As I quickly went through it I was impressed with the wealth of data and the correlations between the unknown sounds and coyotes as well as the night time activity by hour with my own experience at bear bait stations. 

[BobbyO]

16 minutes ago, Huntster said:

Absolutely excellent study! As I quickly went through it I was impressed with the wealth of data and the correlations between the unknown sounds and coyotes as well as the night time activity by hour with my own experience at bear bait stations. 

 

And it's specifically the Coyote Warning/Locator call too H, not just any normal, regular type vocalizations like barks, yips, howls etc.

[gigantor]

This here is a great comparison BobbyO, good job finding reference data.

 

 

[JKH]

Here's an old thread with some interesting info:

https://bigfootforums.com/topic/844-how-do-other-animals-react/#comment-11670

 

Also suggest forums search by author Branco for coyotes. He shared a lot of knowledge over the years about their relations w/ the hairy folks. I'm sure many others have as well.

 

 

Edited May 10, 2022 by JKH

[Explorer]

@BobbyO

 

Thanks much for your excellent report and for sharing it with BFF!

 

Great to see the total number and type of species detected while conducting the sound recording study.  It is very informative and useful to have a baseline.

 

I wish the Bluff Creek project generated similar statistics on all the animals detected over the years with their camera traps, so that we can have a base line of what is detected vs. what is expected given what is known about the local wildlife population.

 

Fascinating finding on the correlation between coyotes warning calls and presence of unknown vocalizations!

 

Maybe you have the stats already, but I am curious if you have the following odds:

Given that coyote warning calls were recorded, what was the frequency on unknown sounds that were recorded within 2 hours?

Given that there were 307 recordings of coyotes, I would like to understand the % of them that were isolated vs. the % of them that were followed by recordings of unknown vocalizations (within 2 hours).   I am using 2 hours as the max time required for the coyote to detect the presence of the unknown target in the same area (but it could be a variable).  If a coyote is detecting the unknown target, it is not known if the detection is from odor or sign left on the field many hours before or visual/sound detected on real time.  Thus, the time delay for coyote detection could be a variable from <1 hour to 24 hours.   

 

I realize that not all 307 coyote sound recordings were warning/locator calls, is there a breakdown by type?  Maybe the stats above should be only on the warning/locator calls and not on all coyote sounds, but not sure what other coyote sound classifications are available.  Can you share a coyote warning/location call recording to hear what it sounds like?

 

I was surprised to see 336 recordings of domestic dogs near the nest site.  I thought the target area was remote and away from the OP communities.

[BobbyO]

3 hours ago, Explorer said:

@BobbyO

 

Thanks much for your excellent report and for sharing it with BFF!

 

Great to see the total number and type of species detected while conducting the sound recording study.  It is very informative and useful to have a baseline.

 

I wish the Bluff Creek project generated similar statistics on all the animals detected over the years with their camera traps, so that we can have a base line of what is detected vs. what is expected given what is known about the local wildlife population. - I'm hopeful that sharing this may entice other groups to share more. We don't see enough being shared publicly from the bigger research groups and the projects that they are doing imo, and i felt it was important to share all where this is concerned, including information on the known species of birds and animals that were recorded.

 

Fascinating finding on the correlation between coyotes warning calls and presence of unknown vocalizations! - It excites me to think that we will be adding to this data in the future to see if these specific numbers (Coyote Warning/Locator calls > Unknown vocalizations) hold strong over and thru 2022. If they do, like i think they will, i will undoubtedly spend much more time analyzing these specific data sets and the potential correlations.

 

Maybe you have the stats already, but I am curious if you have the following odds: - I obviously have access to all the data but highly likely won't be digging in to it much more over the next few weeks. I've committed a lot of time (too much really) to it all in recent months already.

Given that coyote warning calls were recorded, what was the frequency on unknown sounds that were recorded within 2 hours? - I'll add this to the list of things to look in to when i next revisit the data, no problem. We did log min/max frequency's of Unknown recordings.

Given that there were 307 recordings of coyotes, I would like to understand the % of them that were isolated vs. the % of them that were followed by recordings of unknown vocalizations (within 2 hours).   I am using 2 hours as the max time required for the coyote to detect the presence of the unknown target in the same area (but it could be a variable).  If a coyote is detecting the unknown target, it is not known if the detection is from odor or sign left on the field many hours before or visual/sound detected on real time.  Thus, the time delay for coyote detection could be a variable from <1 hour to 24 hours. - Ok i understand where you're coming from and again, on my next revisit, i'll add this to things to look at and will use the 'within 2 hours either side of an unknown recording' timeframe.

 

I realize that not all 307 coyote sound recordings were warning/locator calls, is there a breakdown by type?  Maybe the stats above should be only on the warning/locator calls and not on all coyote sounds, but not sure what other coyote sound classifications are available.  Can you share a coyote warning/location call recording to hear what it sounds like? - Yes there is a breakdown by type. We have Yips, Barks, Howls, the Warning/Locator call and Yodels. I'm not personally sure of the differences between these calls and i'm not privvy to the files recorded of them either, i've just sorted and filtered the interpretations of them and analyzed from there. You can find the various Coyote calls on YouTube, although mainly from a hunting perspective.

 

I was surprised to see 336 recordings of domestic dogs near the nest site.  I thought the target area was remote and away from the OP communities. - We know there are stray Dogs in the general area as they have been seen on numerous occasions and were obviously recorded vocalizing too multiple times. Some have collars and some don't. They are Australian Shepherd types. They don't appear to be present at all times of the year however as there are big chunks of nothing being recorded where they are concerned at times, but where they go, we don't know. We are confident that Domestic Dog and Coyote are being correctly separated too from an analysis perspective. There are hound Dogs too at times in the area and whether they are with Poachers or not, i'm unsure.

 

Hi Tony, hope all is well ?

I've answered above within your post, in bold . 

[DrPSH]

@BobbyO thank you! This is amazing work. I was particularly interested in the differences between unknown sounds during spring transitional months compared to fall, and am taken with the data reported that 79% of fall/winter recorded whoops, screams, yells and whistles occurred before 1:00am (85% of these sounds were made before 1:00 am in spring/summer). I feel better about not being routinely able to stay awake after that time. 

 

I really appreciate the opportunity to access this content. Thanks again, bravo!

[BobbyO]

12 hours ago, DrPSH said:

@BobbyO thank you! This is amazing work. I was particularly interested in the differences between unknown sounds during spring transitional months compared to fall, and am taken with the data reported that 79% of fall/winter recorded whoops, screams, yells and whistles occurred before 1:00am (85% of these sounds were made before 1:00 am in spring/summer). I feel better about not being routinely able to stay awake after that time. 

 

I really appreciate the opportunity to access this content. Thanks again, bravo!

 

What stood out to me in a similar area DrPSH was how the unknown vocalizations were prominent prior to 1am in all seasons, yet the percussive's were dominant after 1am in the seasons (Summer/Fall/Winter) where the nights started to get longer.

 

I have just recently edited a numerical error on the 'Fall/Winter Percussive's and Unknown Vocalizations - Time of Day' page too actually reflecting this in the overview page, flipping around the '67% of Percussive's recorded....' described to '33% of Percussive's recorded....' to reflect the chart and what i'm saying above.

[DrPSH]

That is fascinating. Thank you for calling our attention to that additional insight!

[NorthWind]

WOW! I am blown away, @BobbyO! This is amazing work! Thank you for sharing it here, and yes, I would love to have a PDF of this. I will send you a PM.

 

Do you have any correlation on times of sunset / sunrise in that area too? Perhaps that might be of interest. I am also interested in moon phase, too, and you probably already know. 

 

I am in awe. Thank you again!

[masterbarber]

On 5/10/2022 at 8:56 AM, BobbyO said:

Boys and Girls, here's first dibs on the soon to be released 'lite' version of the Nest Area analysis that i finished for 2021............

 

 

 

WOW, Fantastic Work Bobby!

[Maxwell Tarpley]

This is pretty Incredible. Great work . 

 

Curious if the data showed any percussive patterns repeated ?

 

I recall Chris Noel doing some recordings in vermont which seemed to show some knocks and clicks which were 

recorded multiple times in a pattern. 

 

thanks for your work, look forward to seeing more of this . 

[Skinwalker13]

Outstanding work. This will be handy in more ways than one. Any chance that the OP will release some of these "chimpfit" audio clips to listen too as reference?