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What Does Daybreak Sound Like Where You Live?

Morning Edition wants to hear what your part of the world sounds like when it's just waking up.

For our Close Listening: Decoding Nature Through Sound series, you sent us the sounds of birds, insects and other creatures in your backyard for experts from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology to identify.

Now we're asking you to share the sounds of daybreak from across the world, whether your backyard is in Kansas or Kathmandu.

For example, listener Cedar Smith sent us this recording of a dawn chorus of birds in Gila, N.M.

Listen to Cedar Smith's daybreak recording

To share your sounds, use a smartphone or similar device to record a voice memo and follow these steps:

1. Introduce yourself, say where you live and the local time.

2. Describe the scene at daybreak.

3. Record at least one minute of the natural sounds you hear at this time. "Non-natural" sounds are OK — like the clank of a coffee maker or the rumble of traffic — but try to focus on the sounds of creatures outside.

4. Send the recording to nprcrowdsource@npr.org. Make sure to include your location in the subject line and spell out your full name in the body of the email.

5. If there's a nice photo of your daybreak scene, attach that to the email as well.

We'll broadcast your sounds and stories next week, as part of our Close Listening series. For more information on this project, follow the hashtag #DecodeNature on Twitter and read more of our stories about how scientists are decoding nature through sound.

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

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