"Red Knot Sonorama"
by Brian Lindgren (UVA Music)
‘Red Knot Sonorama (2007-2022)’ sonifies sixteen years of data collected by Sarah Karpanty's shorebird research team during the Red Knot’s Spring stopover in the Virginia Coast Reserve. Just as a diorama draws the viewer into the visual world-in-miniature of a particular topic, this sonorama uses sound to depict when the migration intersects with the Virginia barrier islands. The composition sonifies several datastreams:
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number of Red Knot counted at each of the scientist's sampling period (louder and denser bird sounds reflect a stronger migration)
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number of aircraft and seacraft
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prey count
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Virginia coastal temperature (the pitch of the wind sound)
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global temperature (the low bass melody)
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time: years (a long bell-like sound) and months (short, resonant 'dinks')
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instances of data collection (as clicks)
Because the data is collected over a five to six week period each year—and since time is represented linearly in this work— there are moments where no Virginia Coastal Conservatory data is being portrayed. In a sense, this brief window of sonified data represents the short time we have with the Red Knots during the course of their migration.
Citations:
Global temperature data:
“Land, Inputs and Sustainability / Temperature change on land - Metadata” Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, 22 March 2023, https://www.fao.org/faostat/en/#data/ET/metadata. Accessed 1 August 2023.
Red Knot audio:
“Red Knot · Calidris canutus.” xeno-canto, Xeno-canto Foundation and Naturalis Biodiversity Center, https://xeno-canto.org/species/Calidris-canutus. Accessed 1 Dec 2022.
Frog audio:
Bogert, Charles. “Sounds of North American Frogs -- The Biological Significance of Voice in Frogs.” YouTube, uploaded by Smithsonian Folkways Recordings, 21 May 2015, https://youtu.be/Fi2XMx_3_SQ?si=80QhfSaWi-VmQeFk. Accessed 1 August 2023.
“Coastal Plains Leopard Frog.” Virginia Herpetological Society,
https://www.virginiaherpetologicalsociety.com/amphibians/frogsandtoads. Accessed 1 August 2023.
Elliot, Lang. “Calls of Frogs and Toads of the Northeast.” Music of Nature, https://musicofnature.com/calls-of-frogs-and-toads-of-
the-northeast/. Accessed 1 August 2023.
Sarah Karpanty
College of Natural Resources & Environment,
Virginia Tech
For more than twenty years Karpanty has led research teams surveying how the migration interacts with the barrier islands of the Virginia Coast Reserve barrier islands. In addition to counting shorebirds her team takes sand samples to survey their tiny crustacean prey, records data on human presence (usually boats or airplanes), and notes which island microhabitats seems most utilized by the shorebirds. Her team's data contributes essential information to international efforts to protect the Red Knot migration, an epic circuit from South America to the Arctic that is one of the longest in the world and one of the most imperiled. Karpanty's team has recorded tagged individuals annually returning not only to the same island but to exact same mudflat, as it seeks answer questions about the mid-Atlantic stopover, including the role of the VCR in relation to the Delaware Bay and how coastal changes affect conditions for the stopover.
Some of the research:
Heller, E. L., Karpanty, S. M., Cohen, J. B., Catlin, D. H., Ritter, S. J., Truitt, B. R., & Fraser, J. D. (2022). Factors that affect migratory Western Atlantic red knots (Calidris canutus rufa) and their prey during spring staging on Virginia’s barrier islands. PloS one, 17(7), e0270224.
Karpanty, Sarah M., et al. "Horseshoe crab eggs determine red knot distribution in Delaware Bay." The Journal of Wildlife Management 70.6 (2006): 1704-1710.
Cohen, Jonathan B., et al. "The effect of benthic prey abundance and size on red knot (Calidris canutus) distribution at an alternative migratory stopover site on the US Atlantic Coast." Journal of Ornithology 151 (2010): 355-364.