Out of Doors BBC Radio Scotland www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0074hjr/episodes/player

Off Track ABC RN www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/offtrack/

Running after Antelope Scott Carrier homebrave.squarespace.com/home-of-the-…ter-antelope

After being in Soomaa National Park.  The people in 'Soomaa Holiday village' (dot com) were really good and the guy even drove me to a town called Viljandi, this was nearer to Tartu than starting the bus journey in Parnu.  So I would like to say a big thankyou to those kind people.  I had planned to get a bus across to Tartu and out to Palupohja in the Alam Pedja Reserve, to see the old place and say hello.  I had planned three nights there.  There was a large group staying in the Nature School so I stayed in the other house down near the sauna house.   On one of the evenings I got to meet up with my friend and fellow bird recordist Andrus Kannel.  Two of the mornings were a bit damp, however in the evenings I was able to record the evening chorus without mosquitos spoiling the sound - they sound somewhat like 'brown' noise.   My thanks to Robert for bringing me out to Palupohja and back to Tartu.  I think evening choruses have a magical other worldly quality, a bit melancholic but beautiful.  I love how the many tree trunks blur the sound. Recording 4440.


Evening Chorus (1) 13 May 2025-9.46pm - New Road Palupohja

After being in Soomaa National Park.  The people in 'Soomaa Holiday village' (dot com) were really good and the guy even drove me to a town called Viljandi, this was nearer to Tartu than starting the bus journey in Parnu.  So I would like to say a big thankyou to those kind people.  I had planned to get a bus across to Tartu and out to Palupohja in the Alam Pedja Reserve, to see the old place and say hello.  I had planned three nights there.  There was a large group staying in the Nature School so I stayed in the other house down near the sauna house.   On one of the evenings I got to meet up with my friend and fellow bird recordist Andrus Kannel.  Two of the mornings were a bit damp, however in the evenings I was able to record the evening chorus without mosquitos spoiling the sound - they sound somewhat like 'brown' noise.   My thanks to Robert for bringing me out to Palupohja and back to Tartu.  I think evening choruses have a magical other worldly quality, a bit melancholic but beautiful.  I love how the many tree trunks blur the sound. Recording 4443.


Birds & Rain - 14 May 2025- 1.20pm - Near Sauna House Palupohja

After being in Soomaa National Park.  The people in 'Soomaa Holiday village' (dot com) were really good and the guy even drove me to a town called Viljandi, this was nearer to Tartu than starting the bus journey in Parnu.  So I would like to say a big thankyou to those kind people.  I had planned to get a bus across to Tartu and out to Palupohja in the Alam Pedja Reserve, to see the old place and say hello.  I had planned three nights there.  There was a large group staying in the Nature School so I stayed in the other house down near the sauna house.   On one of the evenings I got to meet up with my friend and fellow bird recordist Andrus Kannel.  Two of the mornings were a bit damp, however in the evenings I was able to record the evening chorus without mosquitos spoiling the sound - they sound somewhat like 'brown' noise.   My thanks to Robert for bringing me out to Palupohja and back to Tartu.  I think evening choruses have a magical other worldly quality, a bit melancholic but beautiful.  I love how the many tree trunks blur the sound. Recording 4447.


Evening Chorus (4) 14 May 2025- 10pm - New Road Palupohja

I was in Soomaa National park in 2012. In 2013 I was there again and recorded some good material but as it was endlessly overflown by jets I had to give up on that location for recording.  For other trips to Estonia I went instead to the Alam Pedja reserve, this has been really good and productive.  When planning my 2025 trip I heard that the torrent of jets was no longer roaring over Soomaa, so I knew it was time to return. 
The weather was not as settled for the first few days, however it calmed down enough to capture these beautiful recordings of the Skylarks.  Even though the flat open grassy area was huge, the three and sometimes four Skylarks performed in only a small part of it, this was a good thing as the birds being near each other seemed to make them sing all the better.  Usually I record in forested or woodland habitats, however when I heard these birds, I decided to devote the rest of my stay to recording the Skylarks.  I used three recording rigs placed about 30 meters apart, and left them out from about 3am to about 5am (A Tascam DR100-Mk3 with the Rode NT4 with the Omni capsules, a Tascam X8 recorder with a pair of Lewitt 440's cardioid and finally a Sound devices MixPre3 recorder and a pair of Omni directional MKH8020's).  On my last morning there, only two birds were in song and even they seemed to be loosing interest in singing and had moved away somewhat from where they had been singing so well in the previous days.  Sometimes Lapwings could be heard in that same place, these can be heard best in the opening recording.  In my 42 years of recording I have only recorded Skylarks twice, but never as well as in this production.  It is very difficult to find somewhere quiet enough to get really clean recordings.  Finally, I stayed in Soomaa Puhkeküla (Soomaa Holiday Village) this is right inside the park and almost directly opposite the field where I made these recordings.

Skylark Heaven (track 5) - Free download

I was in Soomaa National park in 2012. In 2013 I was there again and recorded some good material but as it was endlessly overflown by jets I had to give up on that location for recording.  For other trips to Estonia I went instead to the Alam Pedja reserve, this has been really good and productive.  When planning my 2025 trip I heard that the torrent of jets was no longer roaring over Soomaa, so I knew it was time to return there. 
The weather was not as settled for the first few days, however it calmed down enough to capture these beautiful recordings of the Skylarks.  Even though the flat open grassy area was huge, the three and sometimes four Skylarks performed in only a small part of it, this was a good thing as the birds being near each other seemed to make them sing all the better.  Usually I record in forested or woodland habitats, however when I heard these birds, I decided to devote the rest of my stay to recording the Skylarks.  I used three recording rigs placed about 30 meters apart, and left them out from about 3am to about 5am (A Tascam DR100-Mk3 with the Rode NT4 with the Omni capsules, a Tascam X8 recorder with a pair of Lewitt 440's cardioid and finally a Sound devices MixPre3 recorder and a pair of Omni directional MKH8020's).  On my last morning there, only two birds were in song and even they seemed to be loosing interest in singing and had moved away somewhat from where they had been singing so well in the previous days.  Sometimes Lapwings could be heard in that same place, these can be heard best in the opening recording.  In my 42 years of recording I have only recorded Skylarks twice, but never as well as in this production.  It is very difficult to find somewhere quiet enough to get really clean recordings.  Finally, I stayed in Soomaa Puhkeküla (Soomaa Holiday Village) this is right inside the park and almost directly opposite the field where I made these recordings.

Skylark Heaven (track 4) - free download

Skylark Heaven (track 3) - free download

Skylark Heaven (track 2) - free download

I was in Soomaa National park in 2012. In 2013 I was there again and recorded some good material but as it was endlessly overflown by jets, so I had to give up on that location for recording.  For other trips to Estonia I went instead to the Alam Pedja reserve, this has been really good and productive.  When planning my 2025 trip I heard that the torrent of jets was no longer roaring over Soomaa, so I knew it was time to return. 
The weather was not as settled for the first few days, however it calmed down enough to capture these beautiful recordings of the Skylarks.  Even though the flat open grassy area was huge, the three and sometimes four Skylarks performed in only a small part of it, this was a good thing as the birds being near each other seemed to make them sing all the better.  Usually I record in forested or woodland habitats, however when I heard these birds, I decided to devote the rest of my stay to recording the Skylarks.  I used three recording rigs placed about 30 meters apart, and left them out from about 3am to about 5am (A Tascam DR100-Mk3 with the Rode NT4 with the Omni capsules, a Tascam X8 recorder with a pair of Lewitt 440's cardioid and finally a Sound devices MixPre3 recorder and a pair of Omni directional MKH8020's).  On my last morning there, only two birds were in song and even they seemed to be loosing interest in singing and had moved away somewhat from where they had been singing so well in the previous days.  Sometimes Lapwings could be heard in that same place, these can be heard best in the opening recording.  In my 42 years of recording I have only recorded Skylarks twice, but never as well as in this production.  It is very difficult to find somewhere quiet enough to get really clean recordings.  Finally, I stayed in Soomaa Puhkeküla (Soomaa Holiday Village) this is right inside the park and almost directly opposite the field where I made these recordings.

Skylark Heaven (track 1) - free download

Recorded in MS from about 3m distance. Andau (Austria), June 2025

photo credit: Nicola Matthews under CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

Corncrake (Crex crex)

I was in Estonia recently to check-out Matsalu National park to learn as much as I could about it before maybe returning in May to record.  It was the wrong time of year to record birds, however back in the city I recorded some street sounds on my last evening.  Equipment; A Sound Devices MixPre3 recorder and a matched pair of Primo microphones.  Recording 4476.

Side Street Atmosphere - 27 September 2025-8.35pm.  Tallinn

Three half-episodes crammed into one! Short excerpts from works relating to conservation, without interviewing the producers or playing the pieces in full. Plus a couple of other audio-less recommendations. 

Running after Antelope Scott Carrier https://homebrave.squarespace.com/home-of-the-brave/running-after-antelope

Running the goat Chris Brookes/Battery Radio http://www.batteryradio.com/Pages/Golden.html

Out of Doors BBC Radio Scotland http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0074hjr/episodes/player

Off Track http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/offtrack/

Radiolab http://www.radiolab.org/series/podcasts/ 

Other people and programmes who were on the cards include:
 
Tree-climber James Aldred who has been in a couple of BBC Natural History Unit radio programmes such as James and the Giant Eagle and James and the Giant Tree. http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b010fc06 and http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00l14wp
 
Taiwan-based sound artist Jannick Dauby. http://www.kalerne.net/yannickdauby/
 
Marc Anderson of Wild Ambience. http://wildambience.com/
 
And Colette Kinsella whose Zoo Diaries (in particular 'Birth') pushed me to start the who project in the first place. http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/radiotonic/zoo-diaries-stories-from-within/5959900

The excerpts are all short parts of longer programmes, and are used for the purposes of education and criticism. 
This is the final episode (for a while at least) of Conservation Sound – I'm off to do a Master's in Conservation Science and won't have time for this lark!

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Conservation Sound is a podcast for scientists and conservationists. It introduces other people who tramp across fields in wellies but whom you might never meet. We all use natural (and otherwise) sounds in different ways – perhaps here we can inspire each other. 
Produced by Connor Walsh in 2015. 

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