In February/March the owls are starting to call once again. Quite a lot of rodent activity on the snow so perhaps this will be a good breeding year. All owls are found in the close vicinity of Uppsala, and they are ordered from small (pygmy owl) to big (eagle owl).
Pygmy Owl - recording ends with the so-called autumn call
Tengmalm's Owl - recording ends with the autumn call
Tawny Owl - only the call, not the song
Ural Owl - starts with the male's defensive call, then both the female and male while mating, finally when male delivers food to the female and young in mid-May
Eagle Owl - male calling

Owls in Uppsala

Wicked Owls - Midnight Primeval Beech Forest, Slovenia October 4. 2025

Thunderstorm in heavy rain, some limiting on it due to levels. Testing out DIY rain cover. ORTF. 

Thunderstorm and Heavy Rain

It's not very often my garden is as peaceful as this but it was pitch black and quite late at night, not a breath of wind, just the droplets falling off a few oak trees from the very light rain in the air. I get tawny owls all year around and they always bring the chicks to the garden to practise hunting but only 1 survived this year so just had him/her yapping away all night like this during the spring. 

Tawny Owl Fledgling Garden - MixPre-7716

Midnight Sun (Remix)

The world premiere of David Rothenberg's piece ELEVEN PATHS TO ANIMAL MUSIC (2025) at the Sammlung Hoffmann in Berlin.

	
	



World premiere of Eleven Paths to Animal Music by David Rothenberg

Korhan Erel, electronics
Uygur Vural, cello
Jeffrey Goldberg, piano
David Rothenberg, clarinets and field recordings

Based on one section of his book Nightingales in Berlin, David Rothenberg presents
a composition containing vignettes of natural environments recorded on his travels, from frogs in the Amazon, nightingales and wind in the Camargues, leafcutter ants in Costa Rica and a lake in Brandenburg, among others. This piece encourages performers to listen closely to whole natural environments and find a way to play together and within them using the ‘eleven paths to animal music’ described in the book.

Rothenberg also cites Olivier Messiaen’s “Quartet of the End of Time,” George Crumb’s “Vox Balaenae”and Tierra Whack’s “Whack World” as inspirations for this work, which has its first performance at the Sammlung Hoffmann in Berlin, Sunday May 18th, 2025.








Eleven Paths to Animal Music World Premiere

The world premiere of Loon Asylum (2022) by David Rothenberg, commissioned by the Wayzata Symphony of Minnesota. Conducted by Marlene Pauley

Loon Asylum

There is nothing worse than recording in perfect conditions all day but then realising that 'perfect' doesn't exist, as I simple could not escape the sound of man. Wherever I went, even far from roads, it just seemed like a day that every farmer in the country was using his loudest machinery, but for this moment, I had a brief brake where everything just stopped, long enough for me to capture this relaxing moment on the coast. 

Gear: Sound Devices MixPre 6 ii + Schoeps Stereo Mk 2's  

Goldcliff High Tide Shoreline - MixPre-7764_01

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

I've always struggled to get a good recording of these guys as the dynamic range between the subtle percussion and their loud piercing trills is quite large. The best recordings I've heard of these have actually been close up microphones, which I hope to try one day but for now, this is about as good as I've managed to get so far. Only a few mimicry phrases I can pick up in this one, the most obvious being that Jackdaw but lots of Gull sounds in there too. 

Gear: Sound Device MixPre 6 ii - Schoeps Mk 4 inside Telinga Dish + Stereo Mk 2's

Starling Song Mimicking Jackdaw and Gulls - MixPre-7775

O Dan Rew

Field sound recordist and archivist of vanishing sounds in natural Iandscapes. Highly commended in the Sound of the Year Awards 2024 - Best Natural Sound.

Owls in Uppsala

Bo Söderström