It could easily voiceover R2D2. Great recordning! thanks for sharing.

While working on a documentary project in Addis Ababa, I was lucky enough to visit several natural sites in Ethiopia. This is a recording from Lake Langano, where many birds and other animals live. 

I was recording on the shore near the fishing village, which you can hear softly in the background. At that time, children were bathing and having fun.

March 2021. Recorded together with Lucia Nimcova.

Early morning on Lake Langano, Ethiopia

Listening with good headphones in a quiet environment is recommended.

Related tracks:
https://soundcloud.com/hearingbeings/20211024-an-excerpt-from-a-syncopated-dawn-spring
https://soundcloud.com/hearingbeings/20211024-a-syncopated-dawn-spring

@Bandcamp

2021.10.24 Night Music. Spring.

This is the most silent ambience I've recorded to date. Captured in an old growth forest in the White Mountains National Forest during Autumn, there are no sounds other than gentle wind blowing through the trees. 

The full recording is 1 hr 33 min and features nothing but occasional leaves moving and tree branches knocking into each other. 

Thanks for listening ♫

Windy Forest Soundbed (9:24pm) | LS-10 w/SASS

The song of my favorite bird captured with incredible detail by the Telinga Modular with two EM272 capsules installed in stereo configuration.

Distance from the wood thrush was about 7 meters.

Telinga Modular Review: https://acousticnature.com/journal/telinga-modular-parabolic-microphone-review

Wood Thrush Song | Telinga Modular Parabolic Microphone

Haunting Red Deer rutting in the forest of Orléans

On Saturday, 12 November 2022, South Australia, including the whole Adelaide region, experienced an uncharacteristic extended storm of unusual intensity. Several storm fronts, arriving from the NW over St Vincent's Gulf, hit Adelaide and the Fleurieu Peninsula. The storm has been described as "one of the strongest thunderstorms in recent memory",* causing flash flooding, wind gusts exceeding 100 km/h that tore down huge gum trees (many of which crushed houses, cars, and electricity lines), as well as flattening giant electricity pylons, leaving around a hundred thousand people without power. 

This recording, made in the Adelaide Hills (near Norton Summit), captures a sample of the first and mildest storm wavefront that day. (The recording begins at 10:30 in the morning. This abridged version selects two excerpts from the longer recording, chosen because of the poignant presence of bird calls audible between the peals of thunder. The highlighted parts of the spectrogram in the track image indicate the passages from the longer recording that were selected for this abridged version.) The microphones sheltered from the fairly light rain underneath a 'sweet pittosporum' or 'native daphne' tree (Pittosporum undulatum), native to southeastern Australia, but a 'declared plant' in South Australia ('a woody weed invading native local vegetation', due to widespread ornamental planting).

Travelling farther south immediately after this recording, I was able to intercept the next two storm wavefronts, which were far more intense. Although the storm was utterly awesome and spectacular (lightning bolts plunging into fields, exploding thunder tearing the atmosphere apart), it was impossible to find any spot from which to record the storm, because it brought with it an abundant lashing downpour of rain and wild tree-tossing winds. All the shelters in the state forests had iron rooves: the rain battering the rooves was deafening, drowning out even the peals of thunder.

In the end, I could only just sit and experience it. Which, after all, is the very best thing to do, with Nature. (Most of the time, at least. Not recommended when it gets this violent. Although I have to say that this was truly a very beautiful and awe-inspiring experience; and, personally, I'm very glad to have been out there to witness it. I'm also contemplating possible recording solutions, in case this ever happens again... Enraptured by thunderstorms as a spatial music of nature. All that I have said, here, is the simple truth.)
__________________________________________
*https://www.weatherzone.com.au/news/why-the-adelaide-storm-was-so-intense/925471
https://www.sapowernetworks.com.au/data/313806/12-november-storm-update-from-sa-power-networks/
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/11/18/australias-indigenous-people-call-for-seat-at-table-at-cop27
__________________________________________
Recorded with respect upon the land of the Kaurna people.

2022.11.12 Storm above the Hills. Late Spring. (Excerpt)

A long soundscape across Dawn in the Queets River Valley rainforest of the Olympic National Park. Starting in Astronomical Twilight, a small herd of Roosevelt Elk walks in from a distance, though a small forest glade, an away towards the Queets River bed.

Early Autumn rainfall and dropping Maple Leaves are the dominant sounds to begin, their pak-pak-spaks are a reminder that time passes, even in the still quiet of a moss-covered forest.

Highway 101 in less than 12 miles away, and distant traffic is funneled up the Valley, showing the difficulty of escaping human-generated sound. This has been mitigated somewhat with light processing, but close listening and inspection will make remnants evident. There are no other edits or processes committed.

I love the crisp cold air of the rainforests in the fall. Sounds, natural and human generated, carry into the distant. Tucked into my sleeping bag, I lay back in my small tent, listening to the forest awaken. Where once there was just the soft distant wash of the river, the elk are joined by the local birds. Steller's Jays shriek their song with grating-yet-amusing "CHA-CHA-CHA-CHAs". A Northern Saw-whet toots in the forest canopy. Young Varied Thrush practice their songs, not quite reaching the beautiful and haunting signature fluting of their predecessors, instead emitting a silly buzzer-bell-like noise. Pacific Wren singing at the end of their season and the occasional Kingfisher make an appearance as well. Noe of these complete with the sheer vibrance of the elk.

Roosevelt Elk or Roosevelt's Wapiti or Rainforest Elk are the largest remaining elk species in North America and thrive in shadowy silences of the Pacific Northwest's temperate rainforests. Bull's bugles and roars echo through the trees, becoming one of the signature sounds of the Olympic Mountains. The cows mew and squeal in return, listening for one another to not wander far astray.

The small herd is a tight-nit family group, a with one, maybe two, dominant bulls, five or six cows in their harem, and a handful of young. The dominant bull leads the group on a daily hike, down from the upper valley to the river and back again. Their bugles urge the group, both signaling the direction to go and scolding those that dawdle. As they pass through the glade, their heavy footfall on the vegetative floor thump-thump-thumps their presence as much as the vocalizations and the continued crushing of vegetation as they push by.

I can't get enough of their energy. They pull back frequently. No matter how many times I encounter them, Elk never cease to awe me.

Click through the comments below for some highlights!

Northwest Soundscapes

Queets River Valley Rainforest Dawn with Elk

Forest clearing near Nihujärve lake. Whooper Swans vocalise before taking off and heading elsewhere...
Other birds: Woodlark, Tree Pipit, Song Thrush, Wood Pigeon, Cuckoo, Eurasian Jay.

2. May 2022, Estonia

Morning soundscape with Whooper Swans

A Western Grey Kangaroo jumps past the microphones in stereo - listen with headphones!

Kangaroo Jumping

Kangaroo Jumping - Wyperfeld NP, Victoria, Australia

Celestial Soul Portrait

Cloud Prayer

[Experiment] Trying the Shure MV88 mic on a iPhone for field recording (nature).   Not that I would want to do this very often, but it could be useful when better mics/recorders are not available in a given moment.   The photo shows the location where this recording was made (holding the iPhone, standing about 5 feet from the grass in lower middle of photo).

[Setup] Shure MV88 on an iPhone 10 with foam windscreen. Settings on app:  mid-side mode, max compression, flat EQ,   The quality is not bad for what it is.

The Shure MV88 is *not* a sensitive mic and certainly not great for nature field recording.  The manual even says it was designed to record in very loud environments like concerts, so it would not be good for recording a quiet soundscape.   However, for loud environments it seems OK.   These cricket frogs were so loud that I wore the headphones for ear protection even when not recording.  Without ear protection the frog calls were painfully loud (to give an idea of the ambient sound levels being recorded).

BTW, on an iPhone X I was not able to find a way to monitor audio while recording.  Gain was set by watching the meter on the app.  On phones that have plug-in headphones, apparently there is a way to monitor audio while recording.

iPhone field recording using Shure MV88 mic (frogs in forest)

All albums available for "Name Your Price" on BandCamp (personal listening use only). Please contact me to license my recordings.

Wood Thrush Song | Telinga Modular Parabolic Microphone

Jared Blake

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Jakub Goralski

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