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Rare Madagascar fauna recordings released by the British Library.

Have you ever heard the chatter of a Long-billed Tetraka? How about the whistle of Van Dam’s Vanga? Or the evening chorus of a Crested Coua? No? Well now's your chance as the British Library releases the latest in a series of unique natural world sound archive CDs.

Wildlife Sounds

The British Library releases Bird Sounds of Madagascar, the latest addition to its popular series of wildlife compilations. This captivating collection celebrates the unique bird life of the island of Madagascar, bringing together rare and previously unpublished recordings of 127 different species of the island’s extraordinary winged inhabitants.

Wildlife enthusiasts will be enthralled by the soundscape of exotic and unusual bird sounds - the drumming of a Madagascar Snipe, the screeching alarm of the Red-capped Coua, the rattle and whistle duet of the White-throated Oxylabes, the bill-clacking of a Hook-billed Vanga, the croaking of the Madagascar Nightjar, the ‘cat’ call and chorus of the Madagascar Bulbul, the barking of a White-browed Owl, the ‘frog’ calls of a Rufous Vanga, the chatter of the Long-billed Tetraka and the bubbling of Pollen’s Vanga – all these distinctive sounds and more combine to present a compelling vision of the African island’s exceptional bird fauna.

Madagascar - the fourth largest island in the world - is famed for its wildlife, with many species of plants and animals found nowhere else in the world. A birdwatcher’s paradise, Madagascar is home to an astonishing five endemic families of birds, including the mesites and cuckoo-roller, ancient relicts of groups that have now diversified around the rest of the world.

This essential audio guide contains recordings carefully selected from the extensive wildlife collections in the British Library Sound Archive, many of them previously unpublished. Among the rare sounds on the album is the call of the Red-shouldered Vanga, recorded in 1997 at the moment of the first reported observation of this species in the wild. The CD also includes recordings of endemic subspecies which have distinctive calls, such as the Common Moorhen and Namaqua Dove, as well as non-endemic species with potentially confusing calls, such as the Greater Painted-snipe and the Harlequin Quail.

Sound Archive

The CD is accompanied by a 24 page leaflet which fully describes each recording. The collection was compiled by Richard Ranft, Head of the British Library Sound Archive, with the help of Frank Hawkins of Conservation International, who has spent fifteen years studying the unique bird life of Madagascar.

Richard Ranft commented: “This new collection of bird sounds from the island of Madagascar contains rare and fascinating recordings selected from the extensive wildlife collections of the British Library Sound Archive, many of them previously unpublished. Other titles in the British Library’s wildlife CD series have been tremendously popular and I hope that wildlife enthusiasts will find this new compilation equally intriguing.”

A Bird Sounds of Madagascar podcast, featuring an interview with Frank Hawkins can be heard online here.

British Library

The British Library at St Pancras is the national library of the United Kingdom - and one of the world's greatest libraries. The library currently includes 150 million items, in most known languages, with 3 million new items: including a copy of every publication produced in the UK and Ireland, as well as CD, DVD and mini-disc material - being incorporated into the collection every year. If you’re not in London readers can experience the British Library online at www.bl.uk and also help the British Library conserve the world's knowledge by visiting Adopt a Book.

Admission to all British Library displays is free. The Library's St Pancras site is fully WiFi – enabled.

This latest release forms part of a series of similar CDs culled from the British Library sound archives – with previous releases including Sounds of the Deep and Sounds of the British Coastline, as well as readings from authors George Bernard Shaw, Graham Greene, H G Wells and W H Auden. More are planned for the future - keep an eye on Lifestyle for news of those as they come out.

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More information available in Arts & Culture, Exotic Islands