Interview with José Carlos Sires
José Carlos Sires is a Sevillian naturalist who has overcome the loss of vision at the age of six to become an expert in bioacoustics. Initially known for his extraordinary ability to identify the Iberian birds by their songs, Sires has recently expanded his expertise into the fascinating world of orthopterans.
We will explore José Carlos Sires’ journey into the world of orthopteran bioacoustics, his field experiences, the challenges he faces, and how his work is contributing to our understanding of these fascinating insects.
Sires’ transition from ornithology to orthopteran bioacoustics not only reflects his versatility as a naturalist but also highlights the importance of sound in studying and conserving biodiversity. His unique experience offers valuable insights into how we perceive and understand the natural world through hearing, especially in the relatively unexplored field of singing insects.
His involvement in the TEOSS (Training for the European Orthoptera Sound System) project marks a significant milestone in his career, taking him to explore the Sierra de La Demanda in Spain. There, alongside other specialists, Sires has contributed to the study and recording of sounds produced by crickets, grasshoppers, and locusts, demonstrating that his keen auditory sense transcends the realm of birds.
Inicios y motivación
How did you move from your initial interest in birds to bioacoustics in general?
Actually, recording nature sounds, when you want to record specific species, is a bit lonely because people tend to get in your way, willingly or unwillingly. It is difficult to record in company. What happens? I have to do it because I can’t go to the field alone, so I started to record by audio-trapping, that is, I was trying to record specific species of birds, but to avoid my companion having to wait there for a while quiet and still, I used the audio-trapping technique, where I saw that there could be an influx of birds or that the species I was interested in could be, so my companion put the recorder and we came to pick it up after a while.
Workshop de La Demanda, Agosto de 2024.
What happened?
Well, things started to happen to me, like maybe I didn’t catch the species I was looking for or I didn’t catch any birds nearby, because what I did with those recordings was to select the birds that could be heard closest, individually, and there were times when I didn’t catch any birds nearby, but the whole thing started to seem beautiful to me and I started to like it aesthetically. And that’s when I started to become interested in what soundscapes as a whole would be, in what bioacoustics is, what soundscapes are, soundscapes as elements of biodiversity.
What attracted you to the sounds of nature other than birds?
My original interest was in birds, and because of the way I recorded I ended up becoming interested in soundscapes, but mainly based on birds. But other things always crept in. Both when I was recording individual birds and when I was recording soundscapes, amphibians and insects crept in… and I started to like it. I started to get interested in those other faunal groups that crept in and made the landscape richer and more beautiful. And why did I become interested in the world of Orthoptera? Because there were some soundscapes here in certain areas that had a number of rather curious species of Orthoptera, and I became curious to know what they were… That fascination of saying, oysters, what different species of Orthoptera are singing at the same time as the scops owl? How cool! And from there I started to want to know what each one was and what variety of bugs there were in the area where I was filming.
Transition to Orthoptera bioacoustics
How did your interest in the sounds of Orthoptera arise?
Well, I think that’s answered in the second question, but let’s see, my interest in other faunal groups began to emerge because, let’s say, they crept into my recordings of birds and among them, orthoptera crept into my recordings, didn’t they? And then, of course, he wants to know, he wants to name them. You hear a lot of different species singing and you say, ‘Wow, what are they! And from there, that’s where that interest came from.
Pycnogaster escondido entre el brezo. La Demanda, Agosto de 2024.
What differences and similarities do you find between identifying birds and Orthoptera by their sounds?
Well, the similarities are that each species, both in birds and in Orthoptera, has a – let’s say – song, some distinctive calls, and you can use those different calls to identify each species. The difference is that in birds it’s easier to do that by ear, although not always, but in birds it’s easier with just your ear. In Orthoptera it is often necessary to use ultrasound devices, sonograms, sometimes it is even impossible to differentiate the species by song and you have to use other methods to decide which species it is. The identification of Orthoptera is more complex in general terms.
Techniques and methodology
What methods do you use to record and analyse Orthoptera sounds?
Last summer I started slightly, but before participating in the TEOSS workshop on orthopteran bioacoustics I did not have, I think, the necessary knowledge to even start recording. So I consider that I am just starting a little bit now. Technically speaking, I have several recorders: a Tascam DR-05T, which is very flimsy in its casing, but it records very well; an Olympus DM 770, which I don’t usually use for this, it records quite well, but not as well as the Tascam. And I also have a Songmeter 2.0, and the story of that recorder is very nice, because when the pandemic started, to help people get through it a bit and I was more entertained too, I made a group of bird sounds and so on, and together they collected money and gave me a parabolic microphone and that recorder. What happens is that I don’t use it very much because, although it’s a professional recorder for capturing soundscapes, it’s very big, it’s like half a shoebox. So I don’t usually use it. For the moment, what I’ve recorded is mainly with the Tascam DR-05 in WAV and just by hand. I also have the parabolic mic, which I intend to use to record insects that I can’t reach so easily, for example because there is a bush in the way, a fence, etcetera. Parabolas for bass sounds sometimes cause problems, but for treble sounds they work very well and you can record this type of animal without any problem. For ultrasounds I would have to use devices that lower the frequency to make it audible to humans, because I am not able to see it reflected in sonograms. That is also what happens, that for the recording of Orthoptera and the processing of the audios you have to use sonograms for the differentiation of species and that is something that escapes me a little bit.
Compartiendo la escucha con la siguiente generación.
Then I process the recordings with Audacity, which is adapted so that it can be used by blind people. I do a very slight processing, I cut the lowest frequencies, which is impossible for the insect to step on, and that’s it. In other words, if I cut it from 500 Hertz down, it won’t catch what an insect sings. And nothing, that’s how I do it, but I haven’t started yet. I made some small studio recordings of Pterolepis cordubensis, but I didn’t do them well because they were recorded in Fauna Box and it generated some very strange echoes and things, but in the TEOSS workshop last year I learned how to make this kind of recordings at home and this year I’m going to make as many recordings in insect fields and those that sound like that, more subdued and so on, I’ll make them studio recordings, in their little tea ball, making a little house of cushions as we learned last year.
How have you adapted your auditory identification techniques to this new group of insects?
Well, although I have some audio guides, I would like to get hold of some more, but I feel that I lack knowledge, I lack a lot of knowledge. Here in Cordoba there is a great orthopterologist, Ginés, who I hope we can make a good symbiosis.
I can distinguish the songs that can be differentiated by ear in an obvious way, but the ones you have to use a sonogram, I would need external help. But let’s say, the ones that can be heard by ear, well, it’s simply a matter of either using a sound guide and learning to differentiate them, or they can tell me this is this one and I can learn it. It’s like birds in that sense. It is more difficult because there are more species, they are less studied, in fact there are many whose songs are not yet known or there are fewer sound guides, but in short, more difficult. But by ear you can identify many of them or make a rough identification and then specify it by other methods.
Projects and collaborations
Tell us about your participation in the TEOSS project
My participation in the Teos project is not yet very extensive because I am just starting with Orthoptera and last summer I could not dedicate myself to it as much as I would have liked. But I do want to participate, especially because I live in an area in the south of the Iberian Peninsula that is very rich in Orthoptera.
José Carlos Sires.
There are some species whose songs are not even recorded or there are very few recordings and I would like to help even if only to enrich the collections; if I can discover the song of a species that is not yet recorded I would like to try to do so either in the studio or in the field. Above all I would like to provide recordings for the databases, with the help of an orthopterist.
What has your experience been like collaborating with other researchers in this field?
It’s been limited, but it’s been fun. The people I’ve been lucky enough to come across have been good people. They have offered to help me with whatever I need and I have done the same. They’ve also seen me as useful and that’s appreciated. We’ve had some great days at the orthopteran recording workshops. I have met quite a few people, quite a few researchers and I see that in general people are willing to help, collaborate and make symbiosis and questions of this kind. I hope that this year I will be able to do more things. In fact, just the other day this orthopterologist Ginés told me that in Cordoba there were few Svercus palmatorum found, and I hear it in many places. But there is no one here who is paying attention to these things, nor anyone who is sampling or anything else. And yet, the other day I found a new locality for the species.
Then, I try to help the species that are not very well recorded or for which there are no recordings, to try to enrich with their help, because I need more help to go out into the field, to catch the bugs, etcetera, due to my circumstances. My experience has been limited, but good.
Challenges and achievements
What are the main challenges you have faced when working with Orthoptera bioacoustics?
Well, my situation is simply a challenge for this for several reasons. First of all, I cannot go into the field by myself and capture the orthoptera and so on. For that I need help. And secondly, to analyse sonograms and so on, so in that sense I’m a bit limited, but people appreciate me for my hearing, my interest in recording and so on. They tend to lend me out, but of course it’s more difficult. I can’t go out on my own whenever I want in the field, I can’t do certain things, and that’s the main challenge, because of my disability.
José Carlos Sires.
What do you consider to be your greatest achievement or discovery in this field so far?
My greatest achievement was very nice and it was almost by chance and it was at the beginning of my interest in Orthoptera. When I became interested, there is a species that has a very particular song, which is the Eugryllodes pipiens. Well, back in 2017 my partner told me that he was going to take me to a place in the mountains of Cordoba that he liked a lot. When we arrived, it was getting dark and that species, the Eugryllodes pipiens, has a very beautiful song and I heard it and I said ‘Wow, how beautiful! When I mentioned it to an entomology enthusiast here in the province of Cordoba, he said that there were no records of this species here. He said: ‘Hey, take me to the site and we’ll capture some specimens to determine the species, to see if it’s exactly Eugryllodes pipiens or if it’s something similar. I didn’t know, but there was another similar one, Eugryllodes escalerae, which I don’t know about the sonogram, but the song, to the human ear, is either the same or very similar. I would have to listen to many recordings and have a lot of experience with both abundant species, so I might be able to tell them apart.
When we went there, my partner, another researcher and I, the two of them with the torch, catching the crickets, which are super small, and they caught some and the determination was made and it was finally determined that they were E. escalerae. I helped to make this discovery of a species that apparently had not been recorded in Córdoba, and I don’t think it had been recorded in Andalusia either, or at least in western Andalusia.
Importance of bioacoustics
How does bioacoustics contribute to the conservation of Orthoptera and biodiversity in general?
I think bioacoustics is a good method to detect unseen species. Both the species and the density in the area and the variety. A soundscape is like an auditory photograph of the biodiversity in that area, the biodiversity of the species that vocalise or emit a sound. You play a tape recorder or listen at night in a certain place and you can find out how many orthopterans there are, both the number and the species. In fact, it is becoming clear that we are heading towards a so-called silent spring. Soundscapes in which there are fewer and fewer species, fewer and fewer individuals of each species, and so on. And this can be detected with bioacoustics. Then there is the fact that it has been scientifically proven that listening to nature sounds is beneficial to health. So this can also be used for conservation, encouraging people to conserve a rich biodiversity. Because then, if we expose ourselves to the sounds of that rich biodiversity, we get a health benefit and a sensory and aesthetic pleasure.
José Carlos Sires.
What role does citizen science play in your research on Orthoptera?
The role that citizen science plays in orthopteran identification is important. Mainly because you have an impressive number of people out there recording and collecting sounds. This also has another aspect, and that is that some are experts, others are intermediate level and others don’t know anything. This introduces a margin of error that needs to be filtered out, but I think that citizen science, if well managed, can be very beneficial in orthopterology. It is even possible to make discoveries about distributions, species distribution, etcetera. At www.xenocanto.org people can upload their recordings and the collection is getting richer and richer with all kinds of fauna sounds.
Divulgación y educación
How do you adapt your workshops and talks to include information on Orthoptera?
At the moment my workshops are mostly about birds. But yes, if I listen to one when we do a bird identification walk, I talk a little bit about their importance, both as consumers of small animals, grass, etcetera, and as a large and very important base of the food chain for other animals. If I can identify the species I explain a bit, tell what species it is, how they make their sounds, and so on. But I haven’t done specific workshops for this yet.
It’s more about taking the opportunity when I do bird workshops, if I come across any orthopteran sounds, I talk about them as much as I can and I usually give the information in the most attractive and interesting way possible. And how it all comes together. Because if you are giving a bird workshop, orthoptera are an important food source for many species, if there is a good population of orthoptera there will be a good population of birds.
José Carlos Sires.
Future of research
What areas of Orthoptera bioacoustics would you like to explore in the future?
Precisely for me one of the biggest attractions of this is to record species that have not yet been recorded or that have not been recorded much and help to build distribution maps of species such as Svercus palmatorum, for me it is a common species but the distribution map in Cordoba is not well detailed: it is supposed to be scarce but I have heard it in many localities… What is there in places where no one goes, where no one lives? I think that my main attraction for this is that here everything is still to be done because, although I really want to record capercaillie or skylark, there are already recordings of these species. It is true that there are areas of the world where there are bird species that have not yet been recorded. But here the birds are practically all already recorded, everything is quite detailed, there is always something more that can be learned, but everything is already done.
However, in Orthoptera everything is still to be done and that is the biggest attraction for me. There I can do real science, I can discover something, I can record something important… And with birds that’s difficult, for me recording birds is something more personal, more of my own desire. But with Orthoptera I can still do science and I can discover interesting things and that’s what motivates me: above all I would like to enrich the collections of recordings, because what I like is to record, above all.
José Carlos y Elvia la Rastreadora.
What advice would you give to other researchers interested in this field?
My advice to those who want to do research in Orthoptera bioacoustics is simply to do it, because everything here is still to be done and that is very stimulating. They should be patient and start anywhere because I believe that there can be something new anywhere. Here in Spain we are in a very rich place and you can find a new species anywhere, a species that is not yet mentioned in the distribution, that the map is not well defined, and so on. If they want to do research on this, let them do it, because there is still a lot to do. In other faunal groups you have to get into more specific things, but in Orthoptera they haven’t even started yet.
Personal experiences
How has your experience with bioacoustics influenced your general perception of the natural world?
Since I am blind, it is my way of perceiving the natural world. But I think that with sight you see a beautiful or ugly landscape, but you see the landscape. But with hearing you see a bit more of everything at the same time, both the landscape and the biodiversity. Because you can detect the species; the air, depending on the temperature, transmits sound differently, so you can often even tell if the landscape is recorded at dawn or at dusk. And depending on the place, the sonorities are different. In other words, in a soundscape you can perceive the global whole and, of course, the richness of the biodiversity there. And then there is the aesthetic element. Sighted people like to see a natural landscape or a beautiful animal, and I like to see a rich and varied soundscape. It’s simply that. It’s my way of perceiving the natural environment.
Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or REA. Neither the European Union nor REA can be held responsible for them.
