For More Information On Santa Rosa...

There are many excellent books on the natural history of Costa Rica. Here are four that are especially important:

1.) A Guide to the Birds of Costa Rica by Frank Stiles and Alexander Skutch is a critical book for anyone traveling to Costa Rica. The fantastic bird illustrations in this book by Dana Gardner are featured on the "Bird Songs" page of this website.

2.) Neotropical Rainforest Mammals by Louise Emmons and Francois Feer is necessary reading for anyone traveling to Costa Rica. The excellent mammal illustrations in this book by Francois Feer are featured on the "Other Animal Sounds" page of this website.

3.) Costa Rican Natural History by Daniel Janzen provides detailed accounts of many aspects of the flora and fauna of Costa Rica as well as countless excellent photographs. Many great scientists collaborated on writing species accounts of Costa Rican plants, reptiles, amphibians, mammals, and birds for this book.

4.) Green Phoenix: Restoring the Tropical Forests of Guanacaste, Costa Rica by William Allen is a popular account of the history of Santa Rosa National Park. This book is an exciting read for anyone visiting the Guanacaste Conservation Area. It is also a very compelling book for anyone interested in the challenges of tropical forest conservation.

Web links

Pages about Santa Rosa and Costa Rica:

Guanacaste Conservation Area / Area de Conservación Guanacaste Website - Find out about the Guanacaste Conservation Area, including Santa Rosa National Park. The ACG homepage includes all sorts of information including photographs, maps, a "virtual tropical dry forest", and much more.

Protect the Rincon Rainforest Page - Find out how you can contribute to protecting the tropical forests of Northwest Costa Rica. Your help is badly needed in the effort to conserve the tropical forest which is home of the animals featured on this webpage.

The Janzen & Hallwachs Caterpillar Homepage - An amazing online resource featuring a searchable database of photographs and descriptions of the moths and butterflies of the Guanacaste Conservation Area.

Pages about bird songs:

Mangoverde - This website, maintained by William Hull, is an amazing online resource featuring a searchable database of bird song recordings from all over the world.

NatureSongs - This website, maintained by Doug Von Gausig, features bird song recordings from many different places, and includes an extensive collection of recordings of sounds from birds, mammals, herps, and insects from all over Costa Rica.

Parrots of Santa Rosa - Read detailed accounts of the common parrots of Santa Rosa National Park, view photos, and hear sound clips.

Cornell Lab of Ornithology - Visit the excellent website of one of the finest centers of ornithological research in the world. Be sure to visit the Macaulay Library of Natural Sounds Page (the largest collection of animal sound recordings in the world) and the Bioaocustics Research Program Page.

Other pages:

Dan Mennill's Homepage - Visit my homepage to find out more about the research my students and I conduct on the behavioural ecology of temperate and tropical birds.

Stephanie Doucet's Homepage - Visit Stephanie's homepage to find out more about her research on the evolution of sexual ornaments in temperate and tropical birds.

Dana Gardner's Gallery of Bird Art - The pictures of birds on this website are all copyright Dana Gardner and appear in his excellent plates within Stiles & Skutch's Guide to the Birds of Costa Rica.
About the recordings

All of the bird songs presented on this website were recorded by Dan Mennill. Most recordings were made with a Sennheiser MKH-70 or ME-66 shotgun microphone and a Marantz PDM670 solid state digital recorder. Some recordings were made with a specially-designed eight-microphone system that my research group uses to record neighbourhoods of songbirds. Recordings were edited with John Burt's Syrinx-PC sound analysis software. Recordings were edited subtly in order to remove long pauses and to emphasize the sounds of interest. Songs were saved as MP3 files using Apple's iTunes software at 128 kbps setting. MP3 files are an efficient way to store sound in small files, but they lose information contained in the original recordings. Although MP3 files sound normal to us, they might sound unusual to birds. 

About sound spectrograms

All the sounds on this webpage are presented alongside a sound spectrogram. Sound spectrograms are graphical representations of sound. They are analogous to a piece of music, where time is shown along the horizontal axis and frequency (or pitch) is shown along the vertical axis. For all of the spectrograms on this webpage, each tick mark on the horizontal axis represents one second and each tick mark on the vertical axis represents one kilohert.

Credits for pictures and photos

The drawings of birds on this website are by Dana Gardner from the excellent book A Guide To The Birds Of Costa Rica by Gary Stiles and Alexander Skutch, which is a required book for anyone traveling to Costa Rica. You can see more of Dana's bird art at his website: A Gallery of Bird Art by Dana Gardner. The drawings of mammals on this webpage are by Francois Feer from the excellent book Neotropical Rainforest Mammals by Louise Emmons and Francois Feer, an important book for anyone traveling to Costa Rica. All of the photos on this website were taken by Daniel Mennill and Stephanie Doucet; please do not use them without requesting permission (dmennill AT uwindsor DOT ca).


Copyright information 

All recordings, graphics and information on this website are copyright Dan Mennill, 2005, unless otherwise indicated. All information is intended for educational purposes and personal enjoyment. Please request written permission from me by email (dmennill AT uwindsor DOT ca) before you use any recordings, graphics, photographs, or other information from this webpage. I will happily grant permission for almost any non-commercial purposes and I am willing to discuss terms for commercial purposes.

Acknowledgments

For supporting my ongoing research on bird song, I am deeply thankful to the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), to the University of Windsor and the Department of Biological Sciences at the University of Windsor, and to the National Geographic Society. I am very thankful to Roger Blanco and the staff at Santa Rosa National Park in the Guanacaste Conservation Area for their logistical support. I thank Geoff Hill for the use of his microphone equipment used in many of these recordings. All aspects of this project have benefited from the advice and support of Stephanie Doucet.
All information on this website is copyright Daniel Mennill 2005 unless otherwise indicated.  No recordings, photographs, or other information may be used without written permission from me.  Please email me at dmennill AT uwindsor DOT ca and I will happily grant permission for most non-commercial or educational purposes.