Enquiring Ear

Field recording and found sounds

Tag: water

  • Watersmeet – National Trust

    Watersmeet – National Trust

    Exmoor is a Dark Sky area noted for an absence of light pollution. Soundscapes are much purer1 too, and here at the footbridge to the National Trust’s Watersmeet House the rivers cascade over rocks to join heading west, finding their way to the sea at Lynmouth.

    A surprising number of people who cross the footbridge at SS743487 don’t look up from their phones to see the falls in the header picture. There is poor mobile reception at the Devon County council car park for the site (it’s not a National Trust car park) so perhaps they’re deep in the tribulations of the Ringo mobile parking app2. Reception seemed to improve for them by the bridge.

    The circular walk eastwards along the East Lyn river to the footbridge and back along the other side is a charming mix of little cascades and slower pools, one of these at SS752488 just before the footbridge has a totally different sound

    Watersmeet is a good soundwalk opportunity. I didn’t hear so many birds here, fair enough for midsummer, the forest gives me the feeling this would be a great Spring soundscape.

    1. Largely due to similar reasons: the low population density, but the terrain with deep valleys reduces acoustic spillover. Aircraft noise remains the usual pestilence, with Bristol Airport drawing it in. The terrain slightly helps with that, the high sea cliffs seem to shelter this a little ↩︎
    2. Coins are accepted OK, at the time of writing, take 50ps and 10ps as well as pound coins as it’s odd amounts and o change is given ↩︎

  • A moment by a Dartmoor Stream

    A lovely little stream near the path to Scorhill stone circle, it was worth a longer recording. Starlings are starting to mass in the Autumn, and they provide some counterpoint to the running water in this binaural recording. Nice not to have to filter anything – straight out of the recorder apart from trimming the timeline and bringing the gain up a little bit.

  • Chalice Well, Glastonbury

    Chalice Well, Glastonbury

    This is the sound of the flow inside the well-house at Chalice Well. Two springs rise in this area – the Chalice Well and gardens are home to the chalybeate Red Spring. This rises from a deep underground source with little variation in flow or temperature over the years and seasons. Only a few tens of yards away is the White Spring, which rises from the ground closer to the surface. There is a definite tone to the flow. The well-head has a pentagonal chamber underneath it and the resonance of this makes a peaceful steady sound.

    From a field recordist’s point of view life is made more difficult by the A361 carrying HGVs down Chilkwell Street.The wellhead is far enough away and loud enough that this doesn’t impair the recording.

  • Southwold Footbridge Ripples

    Southwold Footbridge Ripples

    Windy recording of the ripples lapping at the mudbanks by the Southwold Footbridge

    It was a seriously windy day, good for ripples but not so good for the recording.

  • A Vee of Geese overflying Southwold Pier at dusk

    I was recording the waves at Southwold pier as darkness started to fall. The air was still enough to give it a go without being taken down by the sea winds.

    Suddenly, in the distance I hear the sound of geese, and a massive vee of geese pass overhead, possibly a hundred birds in all