The oldest recording in the Macaulay Library, made in 1929, is of a song sparrow. (Photo by / )
As of last week, all 150,000 of the nature audio recordings in Cornell’s Macaulay Library have been digitized and are now so anyone can listen to them. The library includes recordings of 75 percent of the bird species on the planet today.
Cornell Lab of Ornithology founder Arthur Allen made the library’s , of a song sparrow, in 1929. Cornell has spent 12 years converting its reams of film and tape into digital form.
“These sounds are of interest to anyone who has a desire to learn more about the natural world,” Greg Budney, curator of the Macaulay Library, told .
The recordings are useful as references for scientists trying to identify rare or elusive species by their calls in the wild. They are also on courtship behaviors and the evolution of song.
Bird voices have taken star turns in movies, including “Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.” Buckbeak the Hippogriff’s voice of a limpkin from the Macaulay Library. It’s unclear which limpkin played the starring role, but is a recording of one taken in Peru in 1982. “I tried every day for almost two months to get that three or four calls,” the author of the recording says at the end of the tape.
Some of the recordings are of birds that are very rare or . Thanks to the Macaulay Library, we can still listen to the and the , although neither bird has had a confirmed sighting for decades.
Today, the library is still growing, and with appropriate sound equipment and training. Cornell says it’s making a special push to record all the bird species of North America. It has made a list of birds it’s especially interesting in catching on tape, including the masked duck, the brown booby, and the great cormorant.
What are your favorite bird sounds from the Macaulay Library?
LISTEN: Arthur Allen, founder of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, narrates a recording of the sounds of birds and his colorful descriptions of them.