Bioacoustics Workshop - Rutherglen

Join Dr Karen Rowe and her Museums Victoria colleagues for a unique workshop that aims to teach you how to explore your own bird and frog audio recordings utilising the freely available acoustic analyses software called BirdNET - https://birdnet.cornell.edu/resources

Cost: FREE!!!

Catering: Warm and cold drinks, Morning tea, lunch and afternoon tea provided (please fill out any dietary requirements when you register)

Workshop 1 Tuesday 25th August (9.30am-5pm) and Wednesday 26th August (9.30am – 1.00pm - in the field)

Workshop 2 - Wednesday 26th August (1.30pm-5pm) and Thursday 27th August (9.30am-5pm). Go to https://events.humanitix.com/bioacoustics-workshop-2-rutherglen

BYO: Call recording data (in the form of .wav files) and your own laptop computer if possible

Places are limited to 30 people per workshop, so get in quick to secure your spot!

Contact: Lisa Farnsworth (Lisa.Farnsworth@necma.vic.gov.au) for any further information

The use of remote sound recording devices in environmental monitoring has significantly expanded. This workshop aims to build the capacity of community and practitioners to detect and rapidly analyse their own bird and frog calls.

The workshop will cover:

• Best practice field set up of Audiomoth (and similar devices) - what to consider about positioning, number of units per given area, audio interference etc.

• Acoustic data file management

• What is BirdNET (and associated FrogNET) and how does it work?

• Running BirdNET

• Validation of detections

• Assessing model performance

• Interpretation of results

• Most importantly, there will be opportunities after the initial training to explore and analyse your own acoustic data (frogs and birds). As such we will be asking participants to BYO data if they have it available.

Our speakers

• Dr. Karen Rowe: 

  Karen is the Senior Curator of Birds at Museums Victoria. Her research focuses on developing acoustic survey and monitoring methods to better understand the distributional dynamics of birds over space and time.  https://roweconsacoustics.weebly.com/ 

• Dr. Marina D. A. Scarpelli: 

  Marina (Nina) is a post-doctoral Fellow at the Museums Victoria. Her research interests revolve around using data (mainly acoustics) to better understand biodiversity patterns over different spatial and temporal scales. 

• Liam Meredith: 

  Liam Meredith is an Ornithologist at Museums Victoria. His research interests focus on the interactions between fire, vegetation and bird community patterns. He has just completed an Honours research project at the University of Melbourne exploring these patterns in the Grampians/ Gariwerd National Park in western Victoria. 

Museums Victoria staff are supported to deliver this event through the project “Hearing Victoria’s Birds: Automated Detection of Species from Ecosystem Sound”, funded by the Holsworth Charitable Gift.

This event is being jointly facilitated by the North East Catchment Management Authority (NECMA) and Corowa District Landcare (CDL). CDL is supported by the NSW Landcare Enabling Program (a collaboration between Local Land Services and Landcare NSW), funded by the NSW Government. NECMA are supported by the Regional Landcare Support 2025-27 Program, funded by the Victorian Government.

North East CMA collects details of event attendees and their dietary requirements in accordance with the Privacy and Data Protection Act 2014 (Vic) and the Health Records Act 2001 (Vic) to allow it to appropriately plan for events, including minimising risks associated with food intolerances and allergies, and in case of safety incidents. Information will only be disclosed as permitted or required by law, for instance to comply with safety directions or health professionals providing emergency treatment. If you choose not to provide the information, the CMA cannot guarantee your entry to the event or provision of food appropriate to your needs. If you have any questions about how your personal information will be handled or would like to gain access to or amend your personal information, you can contact North East CMA with details of your request in writing at: PO Box 616, Wodonga VIC 3690 or via email to necma@necma.vic.gov.au