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SonoBat Field
Techniques Workshop Agua Caliente Regional Park • Tucson, AZ April 15-April 18, 2011 |
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The SonoBat software package, developed by Joe Szewczak (Arcata CA), is one of the premiere bat echolocation signal analysis packages available to display, analyze, and discriminate between bat calls. The SonoBat Field Techniques Workshop in Tucson takes advantage of the rich local bat diversity to highlight state-of-the-art acoustic monitoring techniques. This workshop provides intensive training in the use and implementation of SonoBat for recording bat echolocation calls and designing acoustic inventories that emphasize full-spectrum acoustic techniques as recommended by the new USFWS guidelines for Wind and Wildlife when species ID is important.
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| Left: Macrotus californicus call sequence recorded near Agua Caliente Park. Below: Macrotus californicus captured near Agua Caliente Park. |
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| Program Details Agua Caliente, meaning hot water, is a unique 101-acre park with a perennial warm spring, located on the far northeast side of Tucson. Literally an oasis in the desert, Agua Caliente contains spring-fed ponds that support diverse wildlife and fish populations, as well as attract many of the 29 bat species known from Arizona. By partnering with our local host at Pima County Natural Resources, Parks and Recreation (NRPR), we will highlight park resources at Agua Caliente and demonstrate protocols for implementing bat inventory and monitoring programs with a special focus on western bat species and habitats. The workshop combines indoor classroom lectures and discussions with outdoor field outings. Participants receive an introduction to the use of SonoBat software for conducing acoustic monitoring and inventories as well as a comprehensive understanding of common echolocation call characteristics used for species identification. Guided classroom demonstrations and hands-on experience with equipment in the field will acquaint participants with a full range of methods, techniques, and technologies available for acoustic analysis. See below for a complete list of lecture and discussion topics, demonstrations, and evening field activities. Daily goals and objectives for the course are described more fully at the bottom of this page. A detailed agenda will be provided to all registered participants prior to the course. The SonoBat Field Techniques Workshop is open to biologists and naturalists from federal, state, or local agencies, college and/or graduate students, and other professionals or enthusiasts with a desire to learn more about full-spectrum echolocation recording and bat call analysis using SonoBat software. One session: April 15-18, 2011 (Friday-Monday). Class size: Limited to 20 participants. Location: Auga Caliente Regional Park, Tucson AZ Workshop Instructors: Janet Tyburec, B.A. (1989) Trinity University, a full-time employee at Bat Conservation International, Inc. (BCI), from 1989 thru September 2002, has been involved in the structure and execution of training workshops since the inception of BCI's workshop efforts in 1992. She has been extensively trained by BCI founder, Merlin D. Tuttle. Over the years, she has personally taught over 1,500 wildlife biologists, land managers, and students of conservation in the course of presenting over 100 field workshops. She currently oversees all training and instruction at BCI's Arizona, California, Kentucky, and Pennsylvania locations. She continues to be involved with many aspects of BCI's workshop program and its growth as a contract employee, a position she has held from September 2002 to the present. She has also contracted with other federal and state agencies, including the USDA Forest Service, USDI National Park Service and the Department of Defense to conduct custom training workshops for directors, staff, seasonal employees, and volunteers. John Chenger, president of Bat Conservation and Management, Inc. (BCM), has worked with the Pennsylvania Game Commission (PGC) to conduct cave and mine assessments and other bat inventories. He has also worked with BCI since 1997 to facilitate training workshops in Arizona, California, Kentucky, and Pennsylvania. He founded BCM in 1999 to address nuisance bat management issues by providing man-made roosts and performing bat-exclusion and bat- proofing services. His company has grown to include seasonal bat roost and habitat surveys, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USF&WS) endangered species compliance inventories, acoustic monitoring studies, and large-scale migratory bat radio-tracking projects. His work has led him to develop and manufacture commercially available survey gear including mist net poles, portable triple-high mist-net sets, harp traps, and bat houses certified by BCI. Lectures/Discussions: Evening Field Practicals |
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SonoBat Field Techniques Workshop Location and Directions: Roy Drachman-Agua Caliente Regional Park, 12325 East Roger Road, Tucson, AZ 85749 Please see the orientation map of Tucson and the park here. More detailed directions and maps are at: http://www.pima.gov/nrpr/eeduc/interpretive/aguacal.htm. Dates and times: April 15 (Friday) thru April 18 (Monday). Check in starts at noon at the Agua Caliente Visitor Center. The first classroom session begins at 1 PM . Formal presentations will conclude by noon April 18. Off-site Lodging: Equipment: Participants need to bring appropriate field gear, including hiking boots, a headlamp with batteries, a personal pack, and a water bottle. • Laptop (Windows XP, Vista, or 7; or Intel Mac OSX) with associated battery pack and/or power cables Meals: Picnic dinners onsite on the 15th, 16th, and 17th are included with the registration fee. Please indicate below if you require vegetarian meals. All other meals are "on your own". Numerous resturant lunch options are located nearby for the afternoon break. Fee: $789.00 How to Register: Please select options below and order online. If you are registering multiple people, please add each person individually to your shopping cart: A few days after registering you will receive PDFs via email that detail the tenative agenda for the entire workshop, lodging info, local resturant guide, and a more detailed "what to bring" list. |
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Please note field logistics force us to limit workshop attendance. Registration and payment is required to reserve your slot! Full payment must be received before April 1 to confirm your reservation. Reservations cannot be held without payment. After April 1, reservations will be accepted on a first-come, first-served basis if space is still available. Daily rates for this event are not available. Fee is not refundable after April 1, 2011 but is transferable. |
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SonoBat Field Techniques Workshop Goals
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| The first day has two main goals: 1. To bring everyone up to speed on the physics of sound, how bats use different call types to collect information about their surroundings, and what this means to our eventual goal of identifying bats to species based on cues we collect from echolocation calls. 2. To get everyone comfortable with the use and applications of HET, TE, and DR detectors in the field to do ACTIVE monitoring that night. The second day has five goals: 1. A review of the pros, cons, and applications of HET, FD, TE, and DR detectors to collect and interpret bat echolocation calls and what this means for acoustic inventory study design. 2. A discussion of active vs. passive monitoring and how these techniques figure into an acoustic survey. 3. Addressing bat echolocation call characteristics and what is known about using these for making species ID determinations, caveats, and confusing species. 4. A review of (or introduction to) basic SonoBat 2.9 use. 5. Assisting participants with setting up TE and DR detectors and recorders to perform PASSIVE monitoring activities. |
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| The third day has three goals: 1. Explaining the importance of call libraries, understanding species-specific echolocation call repertoires, and the need for experience with active monitoring, call collections from known species, and time in the field with the bats and the detectors BEFORE trying to manually (or automatically) identify unknown bat calls to species. 2. Assisting participants with the different workflows for off-loading collected calls collected with different passive recording methods, before using SonoBat 2.9 to organize, group and analyze calls. 3. Introducing students to SonoBat 3.0, basic operations, and what the output means for rendering species ID decisions (i.e., dispelling the quickly emerging myth and explaining carefully that calls identified with a DP of 0.95 DOES NOT mean that there's a 95% chance that the recording was from the species indicated). The fourth day has two main goals: 1. Give participants more time to use SonoBat 3.0 and understand how to interpret the output by running passively collected calls thru the classifier so they can become comfortable with the workflow and with understanding the powers and limitations of the results. 2. Emphasizing responsible use of auto-classificaiton tools for acoustic surveys and answering any lingering questions students have with the detectors, recorders, software, and/or analysis. |
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Questions may be directed to: |
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Hands on SonoBat 3 software with automated batch analysis feature
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Hands on Pettersson D240x and D500x, Binary Acoustic Technologies AR125, and Wildlife Acoustics SM2BAT
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See other workshop venues and dates: |
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