StartGroepenDiscussieMeerTijdgeest
Doorzoek de site
Onze site gebruikt cookies om diensten te leveren, prestaties te verbeteren, voor analyse en (indien je niet ingelogd bent) voor advertenties. Door LibraryThing te gebruiken erken je dat je onze Servicevoorwaarden en Privacybeleid gelezen en begrepen hebt. Je gebruik van de site en diensten is onderhevig aan dit beleid en deze voorwaarden.

Resultaten uit Google Boeken

Klik op een omslag om naar Google Boeken te gaan.

Bezig met laden...

Secrets of Sound: Studying the Calls and Songs of Whales, Elephants, and Birds

door April Pulley Sayre

LedenBesprekingenPopulariteitGemiddelde beoordelingAanhalingen
8610311,299 (4)1
Examines the work of several bioacousticians, scientists who study the sounds made by living creatures, discussing the results and importance of their research.
Bezig met laden...

Meld je aan bij LibraryThing om erachter te komen of je dit boek goed zult vinden.

Op dit moment geen Discussie gesprekken over dit boek.

» Zie ook 1 vermelding

1-5 van 10 worden getoond (volgende | toon alle)
Secrets of Sound: Studying the Calls of Whales, Elephants, and Birds published 2002 with ISBN: 0-618-01514-0 has relatively lacking access features. On the front cover the book depicts various species that use sound calls such as whales, elephants, and birds. Also the front cover depicts a series on concentric circles which is the form in which sound waves take and travel. There is no table of contents. Each page has one or more box-outs many of which depict the work of Dr. Christopher Clark. The end of the book has a few more access features including a glossary, index, sources and most notably a section explaining how the reader can get involved with research and conservation. ( )
  jallen3 | Mar 7, 2017 |
Great for introducing different types of researchers in science, This book is based on bioacoustic scientist. Very Lengthy but very information. ( )
  rrobinson2 | Nov 27, 2013 |
Nonfiction Book Review
EDLS 6710 - Dr. Pat Austin
Scientists in the Field
Secrets of Sound – Studying the Calls and Songs of Whales, Elephants, and Birds
By Cheryl D. Gross
March 18, 2013

The scientists in the field nonfiction book called Secrets of Sound – Studying the Calls and Songs of Whales, Elephants, and Birds by April Pulley Sayre was a very interesting book that only confirmed my own belief that animals use sound in order to communicate. The book contains approximately 60 pages of thought-provoking text and attractive, color photographs that appears to target readers between the ages of 10 and 15, in my opinion. As an adult, however, I gleaned quite a bit of detailed information that I would not have known without reading this book.

In summary, the author discusses the work of three scientists who study different animals and the sounds they make, believing that these distinct noises are an effort to communicate various messages with their own species. These scientists are called bio-acousticians or acoustic biologists with bioacoustics being the study of sounds made by living things. These scientists listen to sounds they can hear and those that cannot be heard by the human ear in an effort to understand the sounds animals make, what the sounds may mean, and how they can utilize this knowledge to help endangered species.

The first scientist presented is Christopher Clark who studies whales using underwater microphones called hydrophones to listen to whale songs. He specifically studies how whales in the wild use sound to navigate, communicate, and survive in the ocean. Clark has discovered that whales make different noises and even imitate other whales or sounds in nature, such as ice cracking. Although Clark was studying to be a biomedical engineer, after meeting researchers Roger and Katy Payne who observed whales in Argentina, he decided to explore their venue of study and was hooked.

Over the years, Clark has learned that whales call in notes or groups of sounds called phrases that form patterns or melodies like in songs. The whales also listen to each other and learn the same songs. They seem to sing in order to attract mates and ward off competitors. The interesting thing is that Clark and other scientists still don’t know how whales sing because no air escapes from their mouths or blow holes.

Clark predominantly studies bowhead whales that appear to be the most vocal among their species. He has studied them extensively in the Artic and was amazed at the sounds of life under the ice. This scientist soon discovered that a whale census could be done by sight and sound. While studying the bowhead whale in particular, he also discerned that they coordinate with one another as they swim back and forth under the ice, communicating both simplistic and complicated messages. Clark seems to believe that whales can recognize each other as individuals with their sounds. They also avoid predators, fighting, find food and relatives, and navigate without getting lost in the vast oceans of the world.

Clark is also an inventor. He and his team designed and created the “Pop-Up” to record sounds. He got his idea for this apparatus by learning how navy scientists used hydrophones during the cold war when they laid them on the ocean floors to listen for enemy vessels. With the navy’s permission, Clark was able to use their spectrograph machines and spectrogram recordings that were once thought to be submarine noises to actually see whale sounds. Clark and the navy have worked together as a team with him getting use of their expensive machinery to record whale sounds and them getting scientific analysis of sounds they believed to be ships when in fact they were different types of whales.

The question Clark has now is if human activities in the ocean harm whales and possibly screw up their communication. Scientific noises that oceanographers use to test water temperature and weather apparently do not harm whales as much as ocean liners, commercial ships, or oil drilling exploration does. Scientists like Katy Payne, however, are worried that the navy’s decision to make powerful noises in the ocean in order to find submarines will harm ocean life because some whales use echolocation and reverberations to find food and sense what is around them. Clark’s studies have even revealed that whales can sense the shape of the ocean through sound and is also concerned that loud noises caused by humans may interfere with this ability as they maneuver throughout the oceans on Earth.

Katy Payne continued her studies of animal sounds and became interested in listening to elephants. She wanted to study elephants after she and her husband studied whales off the coast of Argentina with Christopher Clark. Her initial studies were done at Washington Park Zoo in Portland Oregon. She listened to elephants’ sounds and watched how they interacted with each other. She ascertained that they made rumbles, trumpet sounds, bellowed, snuffled, and growled. Katy believed that some of the lowest sounds elephants made were vibrations called infrasound which is a frequency below twenty hertz in which people cannot hear, but can feel.

Katy presented the possibility that like whales, land animals may also have the capability to produce infrasound. Elephants, for example, can communicate from miles away in order for mating to take place. Katy needed proof, however, and used equipment to record elephants’ sounds with the help of biologist Bill Langbauer and Elizabeth Marshall Thomas. She recorded sounds, took notes, and observed elephants’ behavior back at the zoo. The sounds she recorded were often so low that humans could not hear them, but when she sped up the tape, it could be clearly heard. Like Clark, she too hooked up her recordings of elephant sounds to a spectrogram and it revealed elephant calls. When she played the sounds at high speed, the calls sounded like cows mooing.

Katy has studied elephant calling for sixteen years now in the United States and on the African plains, and has set up the Elephant Listening Project at Cornell University’s Lab of Ornithology’s Bioacoustics Research Program. She has extended her research to include which elephants are giving which calls and this is a difficult process because when one elephant makes a call, another elephant which can be miles away will respond. She hopes to develop an elephant dictionary of what each call means. Scientists have figured out what some sounds mean, for example, trumpeting is used in times of excitement, such as playing, fighting, or as an alarm. Humming is made by mother elephants near their newborns and females make low pitched sounds when trying to attract a mate.

Payne is also a conservationist and environmentalist who tries to protect elephants from loss of habitat and poaching. Some elephants are shot because of their overpopulation which is called culling, but Katy feels a better solution to this problem can be created. She says that elephants suffer like people when their loved ones are killed. She also realizes the importance of studying and counting elephant calls because it can determine if elephants are decreasing in number.

This scientist also studies forest elephants which are a different species than plain elephants, but has found that their methods of communication are very similar. She uses computers, microphones, and video cameras to record elephant sounds and activity. The sounds are then converted to spectrographs for further study. Through these methods, Katy’s research in the Central African Republic has been successful. She hopes to also connect the videos of elephant behavior to the calls or sounds they make, so that she can decipher what they mean.

Over the years, Katy’s research has proven to be very valuable because she has determined that sounds can count the number of elephants in existence and that calls can establish numbers, sex, adults, babies, and the overall health of the elephants. This vital information can, in turn, help conservationists protect the elephants’ habitat too.

The third scientist that Sayre discusses rather extensively in her work is Bill Evans who studies bird calls while they are migrating at night. It is Evans’s desire to set up a continent-wide program that would allow scientists to know where and when birds are travelling because this could help in the birds’ survival by preserving the areas in which they live.

Evans began listening to birds and wanted to record their sounds in order to link them to the number of birds flying over-head which could be important for conservation. When he sets up his recording equipment, he must make sure not to record other animals, such as crickets and insects. Later, as he became more engrossed in his interest in bird sounds, he learned that no research had been done on night migration of birds and that he would have to figure out the identity of these calls on his own. It took him 10 years to search for clues across the continent. He studied daytime calls of birds east of the Rocky Mountains and sometimes they sang their “night-flight” calls during the day. He also recorded night-flight calls in different places, such as Minnesota, New York, Florida, Texas, and Alabama. Evans would listen for the most common and least common calls and then found out which were the most common and least common migrating birds in each area.

He would cross-match calls in order to identify them. He also needed to now find a computer program to identify and count these bird calls. This specialized program would be able to tell whether one bird was calling or several of the same species. The problem is that only a few species can clearly be identified by computers. His research is, therefore, vital because it helps other scientists know how many species of birds exist and if their numbers are increasing or decreasing.

Over the years, Evans designed and created a helium balloon with microphones, a transmitter, and a GPS to record bird calls and determine the number of different species in the area. He was also hired by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to establish which birds migrate over the area of north-central Nebraska because an electric company wanted to build wind turbines for electricity, but were concerned that birds could be killed by bumping into the turbines. Evans concluded that birds do indeed fly into towers because he recorded one flying into a radio tower and found a dead duck at the foot of the tower the next day. He resolved, however, that some birds get killed by tall towers, but not many, and proposed that wind towers be less than 300 feet tall and be located outside of major bird migration routes. Radio, T.V., and cell phone towers should also follow this protocol.

Recently, Evans has put up microphones on the rooftops of several Texas schools that are connected to computers to record bird calls. Students then have access to this information and can hear what calls were made the night before. He has devised a model that interested people can also mount onto their roofs to record bird calls and gives directions on how to install it on his website using a plate, hearing aid microphone, 2 flower pots, and plastic wrap.

Many scientists like Evans believe that birds call at night for air traffic control purposes to prevent collisions. Another reason may be for families of birds to stay together during migration. Some birds, however, don’t give calls during migration, so questions still exist why other birds do. Evans’s purpose is to archive bird night call migrations for future generations to compare their population figures with those of the past. This can, in turn, protect our ecosystems.

The future of bioacoustics involves a new computer program called CANARY which was developed by Steve Mitchell and Sean Cunningham who work with Christopher Clark. This program processes sounds into digital files which allows bio-acousticians to analyze sounds piece by piece. Not only does Clark use this technology, but Katy and Evans do too. Scientists not only share their information, but also their technology, advice, and encouragement to each other, so that further knowledge can be used to advance bio-acoustics.

Bill Barklow discovered that hippos communicate both above and below the water. Half-submerged, hippos can simultaneously call other hippos on shore and in the water. Barklow also wants to know how well hippos hear and is working with the trainers at Busch Gardens in Tampa, Florida to train hippos to go to specific stations when they hear certain sounds. Understanding hippo calls and postures can perhaps prevent attacks on humans, as well as help scientists preserve their habitats for survival.

Dr. Peter M. Narins used a geophone which detects seismic tremors to listen to white-lipped frogs that bury themselves half-way into the ground and call to each other. He found that their calls are not only heard through the air, but are also transmitted through the ground.

Dr. Jan Randall studies kangaroo rats, and they too make sounds with their back feet, hitting them on the ground with a rate of 20 beats per second. She found that different species of rat drum their feet differently, as well with their own rhythm which helps the rats tell each other apart. The drumming also announces territories and wards off predators. She discovered that wild gerbils drum with their feet too and that insects send messages through plant stems by shaking them or vibrating their abdomens which travels through the stems, communicating with other insects.

The more scientists know about animal sounds, the more questions they seem to have, however. Bio-acousticians encourage students to enter this field of study in order to make a positive difference in conservation. Current scientists either earn a Ph.D. or just gain a large amount of field experience, but having a good mixture of academic knowledge in areas, such as genetics, toxicology, population biology, and conservation science is recommended.

People who love to do this type of work dedicate hours of meticulous analysis to find out answers to questions. They love doing scientific research by coming up with hypotheses, gathering data, and testing the hypotheses to see if they’re right. Finding out something new is a great motivator and bio-acousticians find studying animal sounds challenging and rewarding. They are active in their fields of study in real environments, are usually conservationists, and are passionate about preserving these natural environments because the planet’s health is a number one priority to these scientists.

In terms of accuracy, the author, April Pulley Sayre’s qualifications seem to be an asset to Secrets of Sound – Studying the Calls and Songs of Whales, Elephants, and Birds because she has extreme interest and experience in animal communication, especially with frogs and owls. She has also written this book around three notable scientists, some of whom have extensive education and/or experience with working with whales, elephants, and birds. The inside back cover provides information about her being an award-winning author of more than forty books for young adolescents and mentions a web site where more information on her publications can be investigated by interested readers. This nonfiction book is predominantly filled with factual information, but the author does exhibit an undertone of encouraging young people to take an interest in preserving the earth and also to explore these scientific fields as possible future careers. The sources of information which are located in the Suggestions for Further Reading and Listening section at the back of the book offer reliable material to support her content. The publication date, however, is 2002 which is now over ten years old and more scientific knowledge may have been discovered since then in which case the reader should seek out more current publications on this topic if he or she wants to know the latest information.

The content of this book has a scope that is not too wide because although animal sound and communication is the topic, only three scientists are written about in some depth with a couple of others briefly mentioned toward the end of the book. The depth, therefore, is adequate, but most of the information presented only scratches the surface of what these scientists actually do. The author introduces young readers to this field of work with some details that will not overwhelm them. The focus, however, is very to the point in which Sayer accomplishes the task of telling and showing her target audience what animal sound and communication is all about.

The author’s style of writing is one that uses clear language that is logically ordered and uses words that are accessible to young adolescents. When scientific or specialized terminology is utilized, the author explains it within the text, as well as offers a glossary at the back of the book in order to maintain the reader’s comprehension. The language is also precise and transitions well from one scientist’s story to the next. The author also establishes a tone that is more conversational in nature, but does lean toward the side of having a conservationist and environmentalist mentality. Therefore, a subtle partisan undertone is present, as well.

The organization has an overall structure of being topical because Sayre discusses three individual scientists and their specific work in animal sound and communication; therefore, there is no chronological order in the details that are presented. The author does seem to discuss each scientist’s experiences in a story narrative perspective because the tone is conversational, as was mentioned previously. Some of the information also progresses from simplistic to more complex, as more detailed scientific information is disclosed to the reader. With this in mind, the material moves from familiar to unfamiliar when specialized jargon is introduced, such as bio-acoustics, culling, hydrophone, geophone, and spectrogram is concerned. Again, these terms are explained within the text, as well as defined in the glossary at the back of the book.

Helpful reference aids add to the validity of the information expressed within the book, as well as assists the reader’s comprehension. For example, a Table of Contents displays chapter titles and reference sections that better explain what the reader is about to learn, along with the page numbers, so that the reader may quickly find information or turn to a section of interest. Within each chapter, the author also provides section heads that enlighten the reader as to the specific information that is about to be divulged. An Index is available for the reader to quickly find a topic with page numbers and then easily locate it within the book. And a glossary offers definitions of uncommon scientific terms that help to support the reader’s understanding as he or she is exposed to each scientist’s field of work.

Other appended matter that is available throughout this book is Suggestions for Further Reading and Listening which lists Books, Animal Sound Recordings, and Articles for the reader to pursue. A section called How You can Get Involved in Research and Conservation lists organizations for the reader to contact in order to become proactive in preserving the environment. And side bars are scattered throughout the book that are displayed in the margins of various pages and add further facts to the text without disrupting the flow.

The format is one that includes wonderful photographs of animals and the scientists, maps of continents and oceans, a diagram that shows bird calls during different months in the year 2000, and spectrographs that display animal sounds and navigational routes. This information not only adds to the accuracy of the book, but also helps the reader to connect better with the text because these tools adequately relate to what is being discussed.

More access features include such items as the cover which has a clear title and three nice photographs of the animals that will be discussed in the book; an end page that prepares the reader for what they are about to read; a thorough introduction that familiarizes the reader to the scientists in the field who do the specialized work of deciphering animal sounds and communication. What was unusual about this book is that it doesn’t offer a traditional bibliography because the author seems to have gotten her information directly from the scientists mentioned in the book. Instead, a Further Reading and Listening section is available, as was mentioned previously.

In relation to the Penny Coleman article on a visual model for analyzing nonfiction, it is my opinion that the information presented in this book is not made up; that there is an adequate amount of information disclosed that does not overwhelm the young adolescent reader; and that the structure is rather simple with a narrative/expository text. No literary devices are included in the author’s writing style because factual information is what is being revealed, but the author’s voice has somewhat of a combination of conversational and partisan tones. The front matter of the book contains a title page, Table of Contents, and Introduction and the back matter is comprised of a Further Reading and Listening section, How You can Get Involved in Research and Conservation section, a Glossary, and Index. The visual matter offers beautiful pictures of animals, photographs of the scientists in the field, maps, diagrams, and spectrograms which all add to the legitimacy of the book’s content.

As a future middle school English teacher, I probably would not use this book in my lesson plans because I feel that the subject matter pertains primarily to science. I would recommend this book, however, to a colleague who is a science teacher and if given the opportunity to participate in an integrated unit, I would design an English lesson in collaboration with that science teacher. For example, I could design a lesson that involved my students writing a photographic essay about one of the scientists in this book and ask them to conduct further research on him or her and include captivating pictures that are connected with their text. I would also ask my students to work in small groups to accomplish this project with a presentation and possible audio examples of animal sounds to play for the rest of the class to hear. ( )
  cdaugher | Mar 17, 2013 |
Bioacousticians study the sounds made by animals to better understand what the sounds mean and how they can help save endangered species. This book feature scientists in the feild studying elephants, whales, and birds. ( )
  dbcollin | Nov 22, 2012 |
This is a very educational book about the sounds of whales, elephants and birds. It shows the reader the purpose each sound has. It is great for teaching how animals communicate .The book could be used for learning about animals and for a science project. The book is well-written with many beautiful photographs. ( )
  mdonley | Nov 21, 2012 |
1-5 van 10 worden getoond (volgende | toon alle)
geen besprekingen | voeg een bespreking toe

Onderdeel van de reeks(en)

Je moet ingelogd zijn om Algemene Kennis te mogen bewerken.
Voor meer hulp zie de helppagina Algemene Kennis .
Gangbare titel
Informatie afkomstig uit de Engelse Algemene Kennis. Bewerk om naar jouw taal over te brengen.
Oorspronkelijke titel
Alternatieve titels
Oorspronkelijk jaar van uitgave
Mensen/Personages
Belangrijke plaatsen
Belangrijke gebeurtenissen
Verwante films
Motto
Opdracht
Eerste woorden
Citaten
Laatste woorden
Ontwarringsbericht
Uitgevers redacteuren
Auteur van flaptekst/aanprijzing
Oorspronkelijke taal
Gangbare DDC/MDS
Canonieke LCC

Verwijzingen naar dit werk in externe bronnen.

Wikipedia in het Engels

Geen

Examines the work of several bioacousticians, scientists who study the sounds made by living creatures, discussing the results and importance of their research.

Geen bibliotheekbeschrijvingen gevonden.

Boekbeschrijving
Haiku samenvatting

Actuele discussies

Geen

Populaire omslagen

Snelkoppelingen

Waardering

Gemiddelde: (4)
0.5
1
1.5
2
2.5
3 3
3.5 1
4 5
4.5 1
5 3

Ben jij dit?

Word een LibraryThing Auteur.

 

Over | Contact | LibraryThing.com | Privacy/Voorwaarden | Help/Veelgestelde vragen | Blog | Winkel | APIs | TinyCat | Nagelaten Bibliotheken | Vroege Recensenten | Algemene kennis | 203,251,820 boeken! | Bovenbalk: Altijd zichtbaar