Field recording and found sounds
I visited the Heron Hide at RSPB Swell Wood. There wasn’t much to see at the time, but I became aware of a disconcerting buzz. That didn’t sound like your average bee or wasp.
I saw some inch-long insects and figured it was time to beat it PDQ. Not gonna argue with these bad guys.
Olympus LS14 XY
I wandered down what looked like a tranquil pedestrian lane away from the Hereford shopping crowds. Mansion House Walk in Hereford near the town centre.
I heard this mesmerising nimbus roar from a commercial kitchen HVAC. That was the wide silvery tube in the header pic
Not something you want to live next to! Fortunately there don’t seem to be any houses or flats nearby.
XY recording, Olympus LS14
I love the sound of willow warblers, for a long time I had only heard them in Scotland, where they aren’t so fussy about willow. When I lived in Suffolk I heard them very rarely.
Somerset has plenty of willow on the Levels, and it has a good number of Willow Warblers with their lovely liquid song. Here one seems to be duking it out for territory with a Chaffinch
There’s a welcome reduction in aircraft during the coronavirus pandemic, which means our soundscapes aren’t scarred by the rumble of jets. I listened to the lovely soundscape unfold, with an extract from the early part of the chorus which is more sparse, the later part which is denser and richer in sound.
It was a lovely expedition to a local nature reserve, and I am intrigued to sample other nearby soundscapes with less human-induced noise. The gorge helps shield the valley from noise, it will be interesting to see if this works on the Somerset Levels as well, which don’t have the protection of lots of limestone rock.
I joined with Locusonus and the Reveil project to broadcast birdsong from near my garden for International Dawn Chorus Day. Due to the coronavirus pandemic the choice of locations was limited. It’s good to appreciate one’s local birds, however, this blackbird sang well after he’d settled down from whatever fright woke him up at the start.
These mics aren’t the finest – basically cheap Chinese electrets because they’ll be left out in all weathers. IDCD was a still dry day, and the birds could give of their best, with human noise lower than usual. The recording extract starts at at about a quarter to six BST.
Every Thursday in the coronavirus pandemic there is a clap for carers event at 8pm to show our appreciation of the workers in the NHS
You can read more about Clap for carers here. It’s a way to show appreciation for everyone who is working for us all at this difficult period.
XY recording, AT8022, Glastonbury
At noon and 3pm a bell in rung in the Chalice Well Gardens, Glastonbury to invoke a minute’s silence for reflection. A wren breaks the silence, and the bell is sounded again at the end of the minute.
The bell was the old school bell, the school buildings were cleared in the 1970s which opened up the bottom of the gardens a lot.
The ritual of the Silent Minute was instigated in WW2 by Wellesley Tudor Pole, who was a key figure in the founding of the Chalice Well Trust.
OKMII binaural microphones
Fabulous reverb in Winchester Great Hall with its iconic Round Table, one of the many seats of King Arthur in the British Isles. There are probably as many true Arthurian residences across the UK as there are oldest pubs in the land 😉
Some visitors wandered over to the door on the left which leads to Queen Eleanor’s Garden and the large door closes with a resounding clang.
The huge imposing structure of Winchester Cathedral has a fantastic long reverberation time
and some remarkable low-frequency sounds. There is some research suggesting very low frequencies induce a sense of awe, quite appropriate for a cathedral 😉
The Vinyl Factory has released Knud Viktor’s sound paintings– featuring creatures from the Luberon in France
The sounds are sparse, opening with a nightingale, but the sounds work into a fine narrative. Towards the end of the first track there is a great mix of some fellow moaning out into the night against a nightingale and the humming of bees