A gloomy daybreak in the cloud sheathed warm temperate rainforest at 800m at Mt Clunie means that the crickets and insects still sing but the Grey Shrike Thrush welcomes the day with some beautiful song phrases. Many of the usual dawn-chorus suspects are sleeping-in hoping the sun will come out after weeks of misty rain and thunderstorms from Cyclone Seth.

Daybreak in the Cloud-forest,  Macpherson Range

After winter breeding season, on a spring dawn in the dripping forest on a rare clear morning, an Albert Lyrebird sings the local territorial "whistle song". No mimicry or fancy display, just "I'm here, this is me, ", as he joins the very vocal and close Yellow-throated scrubwrens along with Logrunner, Whipbirds, Shining Bronze Cuckoo, Tree-creepers, Lewin's honeyeaters, White-browed scrubwrens and others.

Border Ranges Spring Morning: Alberts Lyrebird joins the chorus

echo dirge

Song for the rain bug, or red velvet mite, the largest mite, who comes out when it rains

Music for Bugs

Red velvet mite

God makes no mistakes

a crackling fire after a night of camping under the milky way, shooting stars, etc.
what may sound like digital artifacts are close details of the wood burning/buzzing
august, 2018
in a mixture of coastal heathland/angophora/banksia forest, bouddi
on the lands of the Darkinjung people



fire by marley lagoon: https://aporee.org/maps/work/?loc=40321

fire with froglets, burning palms: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QtH6H3IdzkQ

Dawn fire in a bay

Performed on November 30, 2018. Recorded live for 3MBS Radio by sound engineer Steve Bullock.

Maurice Ravel - Introduction And Allegro

Midwinter dawn in cool-temperate rainforest in northern NSW. Melbourne-based jazz bassist Paddy Fitzgerald and a metronomic Brown Cuckoo Dove create a rhythm section for the background of Alberts Lyrebirds, scrub-wrens, Rosellas, fantails and others. (Paddys bass was tuned down to the lowest C1 note so best to listen through headphones which will reproduce 30Hz, or you will not hear most of the bass! )

Brown Cuckoo Dove and Upright Bass Duet

I missed most of this beautiful performance because I wasn't the only person at the hide.  It's difficult to tell everyone to shut up just because you have sound recording gear as they have every right to be there also, but I did manage to get the last of it here. This sort of performance is a treat to hear this late in the summer as spring is long gone so I was particularly happy to hear it and share with you. 

Gear: Sound Devices Mixpre 6 ii + Telinga Stereo Mk 3

Gavin Vella

Oystercatcher Performance - MixPre - 2112 01.WAV

Under a full moon on an early spring night, several Australian Magpies sing and respond to one another with rich fluty melodies. Dingoes can be heard howling from further up the valley and a Powerful Owl hoots from a nearby forested slope.

Album available here - https://wildambience.com/albums/moonlight-chorus/

Moonlight Chorus

Moonlight Chorus - Australian Magpies sing under a full moon- Album Sample

Northern Wollemi, Gospers Mountain: 13 months after Australias biggest ever bushfire, when 5 separate blazes merged into one megablaze, the ecosytem is recovering. On the ridges the devastation is still obvious and recovery slower but in the deep gullies and canyons in this sandstone country have survived relatively unburnt. Superb lyrebirds bred this last winter as evidenced by nests on rock overhangs and rock wallabies also have endured by sheltering deep in the rainforested canyons. Microbats , owlet nightjar, tawny frogmouth and southern boobook owl are heard and a cuckoo calls plaintively all through the night. Golden Whistlers dominate the busy dawn birdsong but there is a very complex  chorus. Recording begins 60 minutes before first light.

Border Ranges Spring Morning: Alberts Lyrebird joins the chorus

Big Scrub Sounds

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