Ersatz Nature: Northern Flicker

 


The Norwegian maple outside my house is falling apart. This summer a good sized chunk of it fell from the tree, including this part where a Northern Flicker nested. I saved the piece and turned it into another ersatz nature piece. 

The wood is super rotten and almost the consistency of paper at this point. I found a scrap piece of wood left from the LightLogo Neopixel Grid and screwed it into the back of the wood to provide a good place to install the hook.


I found a great video of a Northern Flicker and used youtube-dl to download the video. After splitting the audio I brought it into Audacity and cut a short section of its call and drumming to use. I exported the clip as an 8000hz mp3 file. I used the Encode Audio application to change the audio sample into the series of numbers needed for the Arduino sketch.

Like the Ersatz Nature: Log project I used an Arduino sketch running on an Adafruit Trinket. This is not a high fidelity way to play back audio: an Arduino mp3 shield, for example, would produce better sound. But with these Ersatz Nature pieces I purposefully used extremely lo-fi audio playback to emphasize the simulation.


I made a couple changes in the sketch. First, I added timer function. I also turned off the looping function in the sketch and instead put my code in the void(loop) section of the sketch. The sketch waits anywhere from 3 to 10 seconds to play the sample again.

The speaker is wrapped in some fabric to hold it firmly in the hole.


The audio sample is distorted and electronic sounding, like one would expect from a simulation.


I enjoy when projects present themselves like this one, with the literal windfall of a piece of wood that suggested its former occupant and another place to put a speaker.

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