In 2025 I have visited four breeding sites where males were calling early in the year but there had been no signs of breeding later in the Spring. This was until yesterday when I stumbled upon a breeding pair. In this recording you can first hear begging calls of the female and later on what I gather is the female song (more the tone of a Wood Pigeon than in the male). 

Uppland. May 4, 2025.
Mixpre 3ii + Wildtronics stereoparabolic dish

Lapland Owl breeding in Uppland also this year!

One of my favourite sounds is that of the fire-bellied toad. In this recording you will hear the toads from 8 PM to midnight with a background of tree frogs and tawny owl.

Högaborg, Scania. May 12, 2025.
Zoom F3 + Clippy EM272 1 m apart

Frogs & Owls

In the silence of the night, the bubo bubo releases its voice into the valley with all its majesty; its depth rivals that of the night itself.

recorded at midnight in Niğde Aladağlar, April 30, 2025

Puhu Baykuş(Eagle Owl) Aladaglar, Emli Vadisi

This moment was infuriating as hours went by and I just waited and waited till a nearby farm shut the hell up for a moment as I wanted to capture the woodland nuts falling all around me. Literally the forest just sounded like it was raining nuts and seeds with barely a breath of wind. Whilst I was waiting I watched a number of Grey Squirrels enjoying said nuts and they weren't prepared to share so there was lots of vocal territory marking like this.  

Towards the end you'll notice his mouth sounds full, that's because it was haha, the entire time his mouth was full of nuts but by the end he couldn't resist chowing on a few, but not without still calling at the same time. 
Gear: Sound Devices MixPre 6 ii - Schoeps Mk 4 Inside Telinga Dish + Stereo Mk 2's

Grey Squirrel Autumn Bounty - MixPre-7824

Beaver Moans and Cave Drip - 5min 24sec
May 10, 2024, 11pm. Round Spring State Park, north of Eminence, Missouri. Recorded by Lang Elliott.

In the Ozark region of southern Missouri, Round Spring wells up into a large sinkhole, surrounded by steep forested slopes on all sides. The water is a vivid blue and flows out through a cavelike passageway at one end, emerging about a hundred feet away to form the headwaters of a large creek that meanders a short distance before flowing into the Current River.

With some effort, I am able to place my soundscape microphone a few feet into the cave, where drips from the ceiling and walls make resounding plops, plinks, and snaps as they strike water and stones below. I record the dripping sounds for several hours (see “Cave Drip” track). Then, at 11pm, something unexpected happens. 

I start hearing the mournful moans and whines, and later the chewing sounds, of two American Beaver. What a delight! Earlier in the day, I had seen beaver swimming in the creek below. with one heading upstream and disappearing into the cavern. Apparently, the beaver have a den inside the cave, or at least a bed of tree stems and small limbs from which they feed.

A Note from Lang:

Round Spring is a circular pool about a hundred feet across and 55 feet deep. The water flow is enormous—about 26 million gallons per day! The cavelike passageway is nearly twenty feet wide, but only two feet high at the entrance.

Beaver Moans and Cave Drip

Dusk in the coniferous forest in February and not much activity at all except for the ubiquitous ravens. At least the Pygmy Owls have started singing.

Nåsten, Uppsala. February 9, 2026.
Zoom F3 + 2 x Clippy EM272 set 1 m apart.

The Raven and Pygmy Owl

A pair of Black Woodpeckers  drums and utters distant contact calls until they finally meet and "sing" when courting close up. A condensed version of the recording uploaded yesterday.

Nåsten, Uppsala. February 18, 2026.
Zoom F3 + 2 x Clippy EM 272 as tree ears

Black Woodpecker "singing"

Dans la lumière de fin de journée, la Grive musicienne (Turdus philomelos) chante postée en haut de son arbre pendant que les merles se disputent dans la haie.

In the late afternoon light, the Song Thrush (Turdus philomelos) sings from its perch high up in the tree, while blackbirds squabble in the hedge.

Grive d'hiver

Crayfish sound recorded underwater.
Species: Signal crayfish (Pacifastacus leniusculus), originally from North America, recorded in Lake Geneva (Lac Léman), Switzerland.

The main recording was made in an aquarium and lightly edited with RX denoise. It is mixed with an underwater recording made in Lake Geneva, creating a continuous soundscape between the aquarium and the lake.

All recordings were made using Aquarian H2a hydrophones and a Sound Devices MixPre-6 II.
WAV, 48 kHz, 24-bit, stereo.
Sound Ref: CH-260810-012
August 2026
Same sound on Freesound https://freesound.org/people/felix.blume/sounds/866241/ 

Recorded during a residency at Utopiana, Geneva, for an upcoming project by Félix Blume and Sara Lana, commissioned for the Archipel Festival 2027, Geneva, Switzerland.

Crayfish (Leman Lake, Geneva)

May 17, 1993, 6am, Lake Louise, next to Chase Lake National Wildlife Refuge near Woodworth, North Dakota. © Lang Elliott.  This is a binaural field recording. Please listen with headphones.

It is dawn in a vast prairie wetland in central North Dakota. I sit quietly in my canoe, alongside a dense stand of cattails and rushes. The marsh is alive with bird sounds, but I am here specifically to record the resonant, gulping onk-ka-chonk (or pumper-lunk) of an American Bittern (also known as “thunder-pumper” or “water-belcher”)—hidden in thick vegetation less than a hundred feet away. 

The bittern’s bizarre mating call rings out over the marsh as if he were the soloist in the marsh’s grand orchestra of sound. How fortunate to be here now, but where exactly am I? And how on earth did I get to this very spot, scarcely a stone’s throw from the maestro’s lair?

The story begins the day before. While exploring the Missouri Coteau prairie pothole region in North Dakota, I discover Lake Louise, an expansive marshy wetland that is a wellspring of natural sounds. At dusk, the soundscape borders on being cacophonous, but what interests me most is the hollow, resonant call of an American Bittern, which sounds off occasionally in the distance. I’m disappointed … I want a close and clean recording of the bittern’s call, but he’s very far away in an inaccessible part of the marsh. I’m not sure I will be able to home in on him, but a little voice inside says “It never hurts to try.”

So, at around 3am, under dim moonlight, I paddle my canoe into a maze of shallow channels and patches of cattails and rushes, trying to thread my way across the marsh to the bittern’s location. Sometimes I lose my bearings and have to wait many minutes before he vocalizes again. Finally, after nearly two hours of frustrating dead ends, I find myself next to his hideout in a marshy thicket.

I quietly creep forward in my canoe until I am just a stone’s throw away. I dare not make much noise or I’ll flush him. Barely daring to breathe, I carefully place my soundscape mic on my tripod and then lower it into shallow water. I attach my recorder to the top of the tripod, hit record, and then retreat just far enough away that the bittern will not see me when daylight arrives.

My strategy works. At first light, the bittern bursts into action, calling about every thirty seconds, while numerous other marsh birds sound off in the background. I am elated! It has been a long and frustrating night—but worth every wrong turn! Against all odds, I have somehow managed to capture the bittern’s extraordinary onk-ka-chunk for all the world to hear! 

Thunder-Pumper

Sample from the album "Australia: Outback Dawn" featuring the sounds of melodic birdsong at dawn in the Australian outback.

Grive d'hiver

L'attrape son

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