MINISTRY OF AGRICULTURE AND RURAL DEVELOPMENT VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF FORESTRY STUDENT THESIS DETECTING THE PRESENCE OF NOCTURNAL BIRDS IN CAT TIEN NATIONAL PARK USING BIOACOUSTICS METHOD Major: Natural Resources Management Code: D850101 Faculty: Forest Resources and Environmental Management Student: Vũ Huyền Linh Student ID:1453092355 Class: K59B_ Natural Resources Management Course: 2014 - 2018 Advanced Education Program Developed in collaboration with Colorado State University, USA Supervisor: Assoc.Vu Tien Thinh Hanoi, 2018 ACKNOWLEDGMENT Firstly, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my supervisor Assoc.Vu Tien Thinh for his great support, patience, motivation, and immense knowledge. His guidance was really helpful so this thesis has been finished. I am very grateful to him for enlightening me the first glance of the thesis. Besides, I would like to extend my thanks to Ms.
Nguyen Thi Hoa, member of the Department of Wildlife in the Vietnam National University of Forestry for guiding me to apply RAVEN software on the process of analyzing data. There are no words to show my appreciation to her for assisting and helping me during the period of two months when I did my thesis in the office of the Department of Wildlife. I also would like to thank my fellow labmates Ms. Lan Tran for the stimulating discussions, for the sleepless nights we were working together before deadlines, and for all the fun we have had in the last years.
Also, I want to send my thank to my friend, Mr. An Le for his insightful comments, encouragement and hard questions which incented me to widen my thesis from various perspectives. Last but not least, I would like to thank my family: my parents, my brothers, and sisters for supporting me spiritually throughout writing this thesis and my life in general. ABSTRACT LIST OF FIGURE LIST OF TABLE ABBREVIATIONS CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION.
1 CHAPTER 2: STUDY GOALS, OBJECTIVES. 4 CHAPTER 3: STUDY SITES. Study site selection. The locations recorders in Cat Tien National Park.
Pre-analysis of results. Determining the presence of nocturnal birds in Cat Tien NP. Nocturnal bird detected species from the recording in the study site. The comparison between the spectrograms of detected birds and the spectrogram of sample targeted birds in Cat Tien NP.
Determining the frequency of appearance of the nocturnal bird in Cat Tien NP. Determining the distributions of some bird species and favorite habitat for the targeted bird in Cat Tien NP. Distribution of nocturnal bird species of them at 7 location in Cat Tien NP. Distributions of detected bird species and their favorite habitats in Cat Tien NP.
Detected the presence of the nocturnal bird in Cat Tien NP. Distribution of some bird species and favorite habitat for the detected birds in each forest types Cat Tien NP. 49 ABSTRACT Detection and recognition of birds are important to reduce bird mortality and, thereby, in order to protect endangered species. Consequently, we need to find out exactly what their presence and habitats are.
When a bird sings, it's telling you what it is and where it is. Especially, determining of bird sound from nocturnal birds is difficult to study. Researching the nocturnal bird species is a painstaking process, with every piece of data collected to understand their habitats. However, surveying for nocturnal birds by the traditional method had many limitations and often did not give accurate information, which causes many difficulties for conservation.
Some methods can hurt the birds, as well as the researchers, could have trouble if they researched in bad conditions or in the dark. In this thesis, the utility of automated bioacoustics recorders was examined and the associated classification by RAVEN software which was used as a way to survey for the nocturnal bird species. The survey was conducted at 7 study sites which belong to three communes in Cat Tien National Park, Dong Nai province from August 17th to October 4th, 2018. The thesis detected 5 bird species divided into 2 orders and 2 families in the total of 9 targeted bird species at the 7 locations with different habitat types in Cat Tien National Park.
The data obtained from the recorders revealed that nocturnal bird was most active just at midnight and before dawn, and least active during the dusk. As a result, the study found that recording at both midnight and dawn or only at dawn would give reasonably high levels of detection. The study also pointed out that their frequencies of occurrence of bird vary among species. Moreover, some bird species sing many times in the recordings.
On the contrary, some birds species sing only one in recordings. The thesis also found that almost detected birds live in Bang Lang Da Co forest and Tuong mountain and a small number of them live in Bau Sau, Rang stream and Cat Tien center which are mainly evergreen forests. LIST OF FIGURE Figure 4.1: Map of study site in Cat Tien National Park .2: An automatic recorder was attached to a tree .3: The location of 30 automatic recorders in Cat Tien National Park.4: The interface of the RAVEN software .5: The process of converting spectrogram’s frequency by Audacity software.6: The interface of correlation configuration.1: The detection of percentage nocturnal bird in 7 locations in Cat Tien NP .2: The percent of the active time during surveying time of Oriental Scops Owl .3: The percent of the active time during surveying time of Asian Barred Owlet .4: The percent of the active time during surveying time of Spot-bellied Eagle-Owl .5: The percent of the active time during surveying time of Brown Hawk-Owl .6: The percent of the active time during surveying time of Great Eared-Nightjar 35 Figure 5.7: Map of nocturnal bird detected species in the study site.8: Forest types of recorded locations in Cat Tien. 41 LIST OF TABLE Table 3.1: Area according to forest status and land types in Cat Tien National Park .2: Climate of Cat Tien National Park.3: The species recorded in Cat Tien National Park .1: List of targeted bird species in Cat Tien National Park .2: Characteristics of 30 automatic recorders in study sites in Cat Tien National Park .3: Birdsong detected at location … in ….4: List of nocturnal bird species detected in the study site.5: The most active time during surveying time of nocturnal bird .6 Distribution of nocturnal bird species of them in Cat Tien NP .7: Characteristics of 30 automatic recorders in study sites in Cat Tien National Park .1: List of nocturnal bird species detected in the study site.2: Comparison between the spectrogram of Great Eared-Nightjar and the sonogram of sample Great Eared-Nightjar .3: Comparison between the spectrogram of Asian Barred Owlet and the sonogram of sample Asian Barred Owlet .4: Comparison between the spectrogram of Brown Hawk-Owl and the sonogram of sample Brown Hawk-Owl .5: Comparison between the spectrogram of Spot-bellied Eagle-Owl and the sonogram of sample Spot-bellied Eagle-Owl .6: Comparison between the spectrogram of Oriental Scops-Owl and the sonogram of sample Oriental Scops-Owl .7: The most active time during surveying time of nocturnal bird .8 Distribution of nocturnal bird species of them in Cat Tien NP .9 Distributions of bird species detected and favorite habitat of them in Cat Tien NP.
40 ABBREVIATIONS EBA Endemic Bird Area IUCN International Union for Conservation of Nature NP National Park WWF World Wildlife Fund UNESCO United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization LC Least Concern CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION For centuries, deforestation, farming, urbanization, and other human activities have wreaked bird species generally and wild animal species in particular and sent them to the verge of extinction. That's also why management of endangered bird species requires detailed information on the distribution and abundance of the species that are often hard to obtain. Thesis understands the importance of detection and recognition of birds’ species to reduce bird mortality and protect endangered species, which is the aim of the thesis. In this thesis, bioacoustics method with high-end sound recorders and advanced RAVEN software were used to detect the presence of the nocturnal bird in Cat Tien NP to and provide base data for conservation purposes.( Birds (Aves) are some of the most amazing animals on earth.
They are very diverse groups of animals with amazing characteristics. They are a group of endothermic vertebrates, characterized by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the laying of hard-shelled eggs, a high metabolic rate, a four-chambered heart, and a lightweight but strong skeleton. Their bodies are covered with feathers and they have wings. Feathers have three functions: flight, temperature regulation, and display (wikipedia.
Nocturnal birds are quite different from their diurnal (daytime) relatives. Physically, these birds have a number of traits different from more familiar daytime birds. They have dull plumage colors because bright colors which are difficult to see at night, most nocturnal bird species lack red, blue, orange or other bold colors. Instead, these birds have more muted plumage with shades of brown, gray, black and white.
Males and females typically look very similar. Moreover, camouflaged patterns are common among nocturnal birds. When these birds are roosting during the day, strongly camouflaged plumage helps them blend into their surroundings and keeps them safe from predators. Nocturnal birds often have eyes that are exceptionally large in relation to their head and body size.
These oversized eyes help collect what limited 1 light is available to enhance their vision. In addition to larger eyes for better vision, other senses, such as hearing and smell, maybe acuter in nocturnal birds than in diurnal birds. For example, owls have facial disks that help enhance their hearing. Birds that are active at night also behave differently than daytime birds.
When they are spotted during the day, they may seem relatively tame and calm, but that is a defense mechanism rather than a sign of mellow behavior. These birds will instinctively freeze and remain immobile when they feel threatened in the daylight, hoping that their camouflage conceals them and trying not to attract additional attention by moving (Melissa mayntz, 2018). In the thesis, I have chosen which 9 species are the most popular bird species to research include: Barn Owl (Tyto-Alba -Scopoli 1769), Oriental Scops-Owl (Otus-sunia - Hodgson, 1836), Spot-bellied Eagle-Owl (Bubo nipalensis - Hodgson, 1836), Brown Fish-Owl (Ketupa zeylonensis - Gmelin, 1788), Asian Barred Owlet (Glaucidium cuculoides - Vigors, 1831),Brown Hawk- Owl (Ninox scutulata - Raffles, 1822), Collared Scops Owl (Otus bakkamoena - Pennant,1769), Great Eared-Nightjar (Lyncornis macrotis - Vigors,1831).org) The thesis was studied in Cat Tien National Park, which covers 71,920 hectares (278 square miles) of lowland forests and swamps in southern Viet Nam and is home to numerous birds and mammals. It is approximately 160 km (100 miles) northeast of Ho Chi Minh City.
There are many mammals including a number of primate species such as the endemic Golden-cheeked gibbon, Bears, Elephant, and Gaur. Many birds can be found such as Germain's Peacock Pheasant, Bar-bellied Pitta, and the rare endemic Orange- necked Partridge. The diversity of the Park has been recognized by WWF when this international organization selected the Park as one of 200 global ecological zones including the land and its water area with its well-known biological diversity. In 2001 Cat Tien National Park has been listed by UNESCO as the 411th biosphere Reserve Zone in the world.
However, determining of bird sound from nocturnal birds are very difficult to study. 2 Researching the nocturnal is a painstaking process, with every piece of data. I need to understand the habitat it requires and its landscape. Surveying for nocturnal birds by the traditional method has many limitations and often do not give accurate information, cause many difficulties for conservation.
Some methods can hurt the bird and the researchers could have trouble if they research in bad conditions and in the dark.