By Janina Castro
Note: Best to listen to this using headphones 😀
Can you smell the salty air? The squelch of mud under every step? Maybe even the headache that comes from staring through your binoculars and spotting scope for hours? This may be a familiar wetland soundscape for members who help out with the Asian Waterbird Census.
In this track you can hear the constant buzz of bangka engines, the whistle of wind, and the chittering of waders in the distance. There’s even videoke around halfway through! These are also some reasons why capturing this recording was extra challenging. It was tricky to get close enough to the waders without scaring them and there was always some extra noise making it difficult to hear the birds.
Even with all of the man-made noise, I like that it highlights how our lives overlap with waders. We share our wetlands and it’s a great reminder of how we need to responsibly share these spaces with them.
There are quite a lot of birds in this recording. While I’m not an expert at identifying all the wader calls, here’s a list of most of what you can hear:
- Collared Kingfisher
- Golden-bellied Gerygone
- Arctic Warbler
- Zebra Dove
- Philippine Pied Fantail
- Common Greenshank
- Whiskered Tern
- Black-headed Gull
- Caspian Tern
- Black-crowned Night Heron
- Bar-tailed Godwit