Cacophony Index back processing now complete

We started calculating Cacophony Index values for each bird recording back in December. A few weeks ago we made the Cacophony Index accessible using the export function on the Cacophony Portal. We've now gone through all of the historical recordings and calculated Cacophony Index values for each recording. These can be accessed via the export function and downloaded into a spreadsheet.

This allows you to see how your Cacophony Index has changed since you first started recording. For example, here you can see how the Cacophony Index has changed at Grant's shed in Akaroa.

It's interesting to see how it varies over the year with it being higher in the summer months compared to the winter months.

In contrast the index for the recorder in Hammond Park, Hamilton seems to have the opposite shape, with a slightly higher index in winter. Undoubtedly this will depend on a number of factors such as the bird species, the climate for the year, the availability of food, the abundance of predators, etc.

 Have a play with your data and please let us know what you find. There is a problem exporting more than 6 months worth of data that has been identified. A fix should be released for this shortly. In the meantime - you can get around this by downloading the data 6 months at a time.

Thanks to Chris for producing these graphs. BTW: He has recently written few more technical details on how the Cacophony Index is calculated.

 

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