Calls from the wild: Engaging citizen scientists with animal sounds

Sound allows people to intimately relate to nature. When people search for wildlife they often rely on their expert knowledge to recognise animal calls. The process of learning these calls involves social engagement and repeated identification in situ. Rare, cryptic, and migratory animals, however, are difficult to hear when people are only at a given location for minutes or hours. This makes many species difficult to study on a large scale, further confounded because human presence may disturb individual animals and reduce their likelihood of detection. Acoustic monitoring has great potential to engage people with animal calls. It can reveal hidden subtleties of animal lives over long periods. Here, we explore new ways to engage people with natural sounds. We begin with an exploration of the artefacts and practices of birdwatchers, and then online citizen scientists (voluntary contributors to scientific research). Next, we discuss how these practices can extend to co-design user interfaces for people to listen to calls from the wild and make ecological discoveries.