News
October 1 & 2 in Munich: Make sure to stop by!
Dawn Chorus at BIOTOPIA’s SENSE Festival
The first weekend of October, BIOTOPIA’s third festival themed “SENSE – The Power of Perception” will take place in Munich-Nymphenburg, and invites you to discover the world of perception through engaging interactive stations, workshops, talks, exhibitions and inspiring performances. Dawn Chorus will be a part of it too – make sure to stop by! Admission is free.
A big THANK YOU from Dawn Chorus!
More than 10,000 records in May!
The Dawn Chorus collection period of 2022 was a huge success: more than 10.700 records were made in May, from 33 countries!
BIG THANKS to everyone who made this possible:
Everyone who got up early to make a recording, especially school classes. All our partners, supporters and everyone who helped spread the word about Dawn Chorus and our data collection period. All of you who were brave enough to contact us to send error messages, comments or even a quick “Well done”. All volunteers who contacted us and want to join us for the sound analysis. Thank you!
Dawn Chorus is now taking a breather and will report back with the first results in about a month.
On Biodiversity Day
City versus Countryside Challenge
In celebration of the International Day for Biological Diversity this Sunday, 22nd of May ’22, we launched our second Dawn Chorus City versus Countryside Challenge. City versus country birds – who will contribute the most songs? Last year, the Countryside surprisingly won the “City versus Countryside Challenge 2021”.
This year we saw some fantastic participation, with more than 750 records uploaded so far! The preliminary results are pretty much nip and tuck: yesterday’s first projection found the city birds to win by a nose, at 51% of the recordings. Today, a number of country birds seem to have uploaded their pending records, and now the Countryside is leading once again, at 52% of the recordings.
Find out more on Participate and join us on Facebook.
BIOTOPIA and a number of partners also developed classroom material around Dawn Chorus for German-speaking school kids and teachers. Find out more at BIOTOPIA’s education page.
Thank you for your great participation on the first day of the big collection phase!
Yesterday we started our third collection phase with an incredibly successful start: 338 recordings were collected on the first day!
The main collection phase runs until May 31. So join us to record your local morning birdsong and share it with people around the world – the more people participate, the more valuable the results. With your recordings, you can make an important contribution to biodiversity research even without prior knowledge. The easiest way to do this is with your smartphone and the free Dawn Chorus App. Not only can you take and upload high-quality, scientifically standardized recordings, but you can also like others’ recordings, add bird species you’ve heard, explore bird concerts around the world, and even create art. So be part of it! Every record counts.
A new partner for Dawn Chours!
The Bavarian nature conservation association LBV now supports Dawn Chorus as a project partner!
The Bavarian nature conservation association LBV now supports Dawn Chorus as a project partner!
“We are delighted to be able to support BIOTOPIA’s Dawn Chorus project with immediate effect. It is a central concern of the LBV to increase the knowledge and awareness of bird species and thus also of bird calls among the Bavarian population,” says LBV Chairman Dr. Norbert Schäffer. “As the interactive nature conservation association in Bavaria, the scientific background and easy participation in the project are exactly in line with the LBV’s principles.”
Through the collaboration, LBV and BIOTOPIA aim to promote interest in biodiversity. “Birds are considered important indicators of changes in different habitats. With Dawn Chorus, everyone can help protect endangered ecosystems and develop an understanding of local biodiversity. LBV is a valuable partner in this effort. Together we want to expand the project and attract many bird interested citizen scientists, especially in Bavaria, to participate”, says Prof. Dr. Michael John Gorman, founding director of BIOTOPIA – Naturkundemuseum Bayern.
We are very excited about the new cooperation with the LBV as a strong project partner in Bavaria and are now collectively calling on citizens worldwide to participate from May 1 to 31, 2022 – every voice counts! Birding professional or newcomer, early bird or night owl on the way to bed. Everyone can make a valuable contribution to this project.
New digital art series online!
SURVIVAL SONGS
Kick off 2022 with the sounds of birds: Survival Songs, a new digital art series by Sonic Feather artists Mika Johnson and Marcel Karnapke seeks to raise awareness around the wonders and threats to birdlife everywhere.
Stop and listen. Watch evolution unfold. Learn more about each species at the end of each video.
Goodbye 2021, hello new app features!
… and THANK YOU to all supporters of Dawn Chorus – every one of you who helped us build the project, uploaded recordings, sent us feedback or poems, or supported us on social media.
Dawn Chorus was very quiet these past couple of months, as we’ve been busy working behind the scenes. Now, after many months of hard work we are excited to present some brand-new features in the app that will make it a lot easier to make the perfect Dawn Chorus recordings, and to connect with the Dawn Chorus community! So, get ready for the Dawn Chorus app 1.1.0 – and keep your eyes open for something beautiful coming your way in January 2022.
If you don’t have the free Dawn Chorus app yet, you can download it here for iOS and Android:
Tagging and flagging: Now users can really get involved, by liking or reporting records. We’ve also built in a new function with which users can query the species in submitted recordings, and suggest alternative species. Humans are still much better than machines when it comes to detecting species in complex sound recording such as the dawn chorus. With this new feature we want to include bird enthusiasts worldwide to help us listening in – stay tuned!
Dawn Timings: Now you can let the app locate you, to show you the ideal daily time window for making your Dawn Chorus recordings during the next few days. Especially by making recordings at the same place at roughly the same time (with respect to sunrise) across multiple days, users can greatly help to improve the scientific robustness of the collected data.
Express Recordings: We realise that getting up at dawn can be really challenging. Now users can triple their contribution by tapping the 3-in-1 recording button (and even take another snooze). The app will automatically collect three recordings during 30 minutes, without users needing to enter all the data again. Because birds start singing at different times during the dawn chorus this “repeated-measures design” helps us to better evaluate species composition at the different Dawn Chorus locations.
Project Stats: Under Account, users can see how many records have been uploaded so far – by the users and by the project community: overall, on Working days versus Holidays and Weekends, and in City versus Countryside habitats. This year, the City versus Countryside was a full success, so stay tuned for more challenges in May 2022!
Free virtual event
The Sounds of Extinction: An evening with Leah Barclay, Dan Stowell and David Rothenberg
Free virtual event by BIOTOPIA – Naturkundemuseum Bayern
Monday 31 May 2021, 19:00 CEST
Registration: http://biotopia.net/en/event
What can sound reveal about the precarious state of our ecosystems? How can we learn by listening to nature’s songs? How are scientists and artists using art and new technologies to deepen our understanding of animal communication? Join us for an evening with three renowned international experts on bioacoustics and natural soundscapes – musician and author David Rothenberg, marine scientist and artist Leah Barclay and expert on animal sounds and artificial intelligence Dan Stowell. The discussion will be followed by an impromptu Dawn Chorus performance by David Rothenberg.
The panel discussion, coinciding with the citizen science and arts project “Dawn Chorus”, will be hosted by BIOTOPIA Founding Director Prof. Dr. Michael John Gorman and introduced by Dr. Auguste von Bayern.
The event will be in English with simultaneous translation into German.
DAWN CHORUS is singing again!
In May 2021, DAWN CHORUS is collecting bird songs again – with new app!
Get ready! May 1, 2021, marks the start of the second campaign of the Citizen Science and Arts Project DAWN CHORUS to collect birdsongs worldwide. DAWN CHORUS is calling on people around the globe to record and share the morning birdsong on their doorstep – with a new free app. The DAWN CHORUS app facilitates the recording and uploading process and ensures best quality for the recordings to enter the scientific database. In addition, from mid of may a newly developed arts feature will give you the opportunity to create own special media-artworks with your birdsongs. More soon.
The app is available at no charge for iOS and Android:
Since the app was completely new developed, we are looking forward to all your feedback – anytime via our contact form.
The app was developed for smartphones with Android version 8 / iOS version 11 or higher. Of course, it is still possible to upload your bird song via our website upload form.
DAWN CHORUS is calling on citizen scientists to get active once again: Get up very early and record the bird concert between dusk and dawn with your phone using the DAWN CHORUS app. Upload the recordings to the global sound map and share your experience with people around the world. You are not only making an important contribution to biodiversity research – it’s also fun!
Birdsong is a powerful and evocative indicator of ecosystem health. During the dawn chorus, many birds are highly vocally active. In an effort to make their voices heard, the project DAWN CHORUS 2020 took advantage of the unusual silence afforded by the first lockdown to motivate people around the world to listen to the birds in their immediate environment. More than 4,000 bird songs from 50 countries have since then been uploaded in a digital global sound map, where you can discover the myriad of bird songs from around the world: The Chorus.
DAWN CHORUS 2021 hopes to inspire you to, once again, actively engage with nature and develop a personal awareness of the biodiversity in your immediate surroundings. It is well known, for example, that birds in the vicinity of airports start their morning song earlier. Are there also changes in the number and type of bird songs in the local city park, or even on the village street? Which birds can be heard where? Therefore we invite you to repeat your recordings from 2020 at the same location, on the same day and the same time and contribute to biodiversity research.
And join the DAWN CHORUS!