🪵Wood Snipe Project: A Tough Lesson in the Field— Fixing Recording Errors in the Snow

6.4 Day 4

Late last night, I got a call from Mao (our team’s data analyst). He had taken a preliminary look at the first batch of retrieved recorder data and found a major issue—most of them hadn’t captured any Wood Snipe calls. I was stunned. This meant that after a few days of effort placing and maintaining these recorders, only a small portion had worked correctly.

After some troubleshooting,I realized the problem likely stemmed from incorrect settings when I first deployed the recorders. I hadn’t used this model before, so after confirming the setup with Dr. Que, I assumed everything was fine and didn’t double-check. That mistake cost us days of unusable data. I felt frustrated and guilty, but there was no time to dwell on it. I resolved to wake up early and fix everything myself. I also learned a crucial lesson—always test field equipment and check the initial results as soon as possible to prevent wasting days of data.

This morning, I crawled out of my tent at 5 a.m.—an hour earlier than yesterday. Outside, everything was white. The rain forecasted the day before had turned to snow at our altitude. But the recorders needed fixing, so I packed up and set off.

Most of the blooming flowers were buried under the snow, except for a few taller species that barely peeked through. Thankfully, I had marked each recorder site with colored ribbons, but even then, they were difficult to find in these conditions. At the better spots, I still had to dig through the snow for ages to uncover the recorders. At times, it felt hopeless.

I cross-checked the faulty recorder numbers with our data logs and opened them up to inspect the issue. It turned out that nearly all had their gain settings at zero. The default setting I thought was correct had been completely wrong. I quickly tested different levels and found that the gain had to be set at the highest level to pick up sounds without distortion.

Fieldwork is all about learning from mistakes. I had been careful enough to mark the recorders with ribbons, but I hadn’t tested the settings or checked the first batch of data early on. That oversight taught us a hard lesson. Fortunately, I had taken screenshots of every recorder’s settings, so I could diagnose the problem quickly.

While resetting the recorders, I heard a lot of flight calls and drumming sounds overhead. Despite the heavy fog, I still managed to spot several individuals. Unfortunately, the poor visibility made it impossible to follow them. Every time I saw one, it took off immediately—none stayed on the ground for long.

The weather was rough, and I didn’t want to risk getting separated from the team, so I hurried back to camp after finishing my tasks. At least I got all my assigned recorders fixed. That’s enough for today.