Kira Edic, a Forestry, Fisheries & Wildlife major, has been a student employee in the Borror Laboratory of Bioacoustics since May 2016.
Kira’s digitizing station in the Borror lab
Kira has helped digitize recordings made by Arthur Borror, son of Don Borror, who founded the acoustics lab. To date Kira has digitized 167 cuts of 117 bird species in three different countries, Canada, Ecuador and USA, from 1995 through 1997.
Listen for yourself to find out what Kira’s favorite and most bizarre bird has been, what some of the challenges are of working in our lab, and what she enjoys most about her work:
Kira’s favorite bird is the Screaming Piha Lipaugus vociferans.
To make this recording, Arthur Borror traveled to Ecuador and stayed at the Sacha Lodge, South America’s best Primary Rainforest Amazon sanctuary. The bird itself is rather plain looking but it makes up for it with its loud, shrill call. Listen for yourself (BLB46823):
The bizarre sound, Kira mentions, was made by a black lion tamarin Leontopithecus chrysopygus,
a critically endangered member of the lion tamarins.
Listen to the recording Kira added to the collection (BLB46605):
Kira also mentions antbirds, a large family of songbirds (passerines) that occurs across subtropical and tropical Central and South America, from Mexico to Argentina. More than 200 species are known within this family Thamnophilidae. They are generally small birds with mostly somber plumage coloration. They get their name from a peculiar behavior: These birds follow foraging army ants that regularly swarm across forest floors in Central America and feast on the hordes of fleeing insects that these ants flush into the surrounding foliage.
Interview by Angelika Nelson, curator of the Borror Laboratory of Bioacoustics with Kira Edic, undergraduate student employee in the lab.
Thank you Angelika and Kira for this interesting perspective on working in the lab. I’m curious where the various bird photos were obtained? There doesn’t seem to be any attribution for the photographer. I’m guessing that these are among the species you digitized from Arthur Borror’s recordings? The Piha has attribution but the others cite the “wiki” site, I find this odd. Maybe no photographer is mentioned on the wiki site?
Rich, thank you for your comment. All photos are licensed under Wikimedia Commons; I added the photographer where known.