SETI Institute

Home News About us SETI Carl Sagan Center Education and Public Outreach Publications Support us teamseti

Watching for Birdies in Arecibo (From Spring 2003)

November 13, 2003

by Jane Jordan, Senior Software Engineer

This report was written during the last Project Phoenix observing session at Arecibo.

Part of the preparation for SETI observing is to find artifacts that are inherent to the electronic equipment we use for the frequency down conversion and analog-to-digital conversion of the data stream.  These internally-generated signals are always present and singing, thus they are called birdies.

We run several scans over the test environment’s frequency bandwidth, using input from a noise generator rather than the sky.   If a signal shows up multiple times at the same frequency, we mask off about a 1 Khz area around that frequency so that birdies don't sing when we are searching for ETI signals.

In addition to looking for birdies in the electronics, I love searching for feathered birdies that inhabit the Arecibo Observatory.  The birds of Puerto Rico are so different from the birds in California that even the common, everyday birds here fascinate me.

Birding at Arecibo is particularly challenging because of the lush vegetation. The abundant rainfall here produces dense trees and ground cover.  You can hear lots of birds singing and calling, but they are nearly impossible to see until they move.  However, patience and persistent has paid pay off.  This deployment, I am watching a pair of bananaquits build a nest in a tree in front of my quarters, while a red-legged thrush is nesting in the back.

There are a number of birds endemic to Puerto Rico, means they are not found anywhere else.   I find it very exciting to see these birds, especially the Puerto Rican Lizard Cuckoo or Pajaro Bobo.  A Lizard Cuckoo is a magnificent large bird with a very long banded tail, a long straight beak for catching lizards, and a red eye ring.  They are very elusive, rarely showing themselves, even though their droning cackle is often heard from the forest.  I have seen a Lizard Cuckoo only three times during the past eight visits.

I am searching for ET on the midnight to eight a.m. shift, but during the day, I am also searching for a Lizard Cuckoo.