On a recent trip to Ireland spent some time in Wicklow and explored Glendalough, a well known natural area close by. Although there was virtually no wind, it was raining a lot making recording conditions challenging. I arrived just as dawn was breaking and soon came across a robin singing high up in a tree.

Sound Devices Mix Pre 6 + Telinga Parabolic Mic
Recorded 13.10.18

Photo by David Mackie (Creative Commons license)

Robin Singing In The Rain - Glendalough, Wicklow, Ireland

Cala Sidoti beach on the island of Ustica, recorded from three different perspectives (Olympus LS-P4 and FEL Clippy microphones).

Cala Sidoti

Spruce Forest in April

Crispy morning dawn. Cuckoo and black grouse are in the beginning of their concert and at the same time Boreal owl is about to finish his nightly performance.

Crispy May Morning

This recording was captured right in front of my tent at a little after 5am on the side of the Chattooga River. The section I was camping near was very calm and saw many people fishing and tubing on the river each day. Luckily traffic was minimal this morning and I was able to record some pristine nature sounds!

Recorded with a Sony D100 on a tripod, sensitivity 10. 

Please visit my website for more information about me and my mission: www.acousticnature.com

Thank you for reading and listening ☺

The Break of Dawn Chorus (Sony D100)

Calm autumn morning at a farm in Exmoor National Park in England. There is a sparse dawn chorus and soft wind in the vegetation. Sheep and cattle call occasionally, and farm vehicles can be heard every now and then. Long version at https://youtu.be/1IbKYmI_d7g

British Countryside Atmosphere

Wild Rain is a collection of rain soundscapes recorded in 4 rainforests across 3 continents. The library features rain falling on vegetation and forest floor, from sparse drops to moderate and heavy rain. Available at https://mindful-audio.com/wild-rain/

Downloadable demo - all rights reserved. License agreement available at https://mindful-audio.com/eula

Buy rain sounds

MAFX021 Wild Rain Demo STEREO

Loud cicadas calling on a calm afternoon in the Congo basin rainforest, accompanied by other insects flying and buzzing close to the mics. Buy recordings like this one for commercial use at https://mindful-audio.com/african-jungle/

Congo Basin Rainforest - Afternoon - Loud Cicadas

What a strange, odd, mixed-up year it has been.  The yellow spanner of Covid-19 really wrecked a lot of plans. I was all booked to travel to Estonia to record, but it had to be cancelled.   Very noticeable was the sunlight, perhaps it was because there was few jet trails, but when the day was cloudless the sunlight could be absolutely dazzling, it had the strange effect of making it feel like we were living in paradise.     Because of the restrictions I am so glad the woods is only within a moderate cycle distance from my home.  I am very fortunate that I have two fairly good places to record relatively close by.  I even found a wild sand dune area not even five kilometers away,  I hope to record more there in the future.   Disc 1 track 2 is from a much longer recording, it is probably one of the best recordings made during the 2020 season, I had made a few recordings, near the stream, then a bit less close, then a bit further away and another even further away, as I wanted a sound where the stream was a suggestion rather than really dominating the sound picture.  The Blue Tits nested in a cavity block in the wall of my home, there is an vent on the inside of the block, so I only needed to place the microphone up to that to get a fantastic close perspective recording.  
I include two recordings of the Blue tits as they sounded so different when I recorded them a week later.  Sometimes I would get great results by leaving the old Marantz recorder hidden in a bushy place while I go not too far away to record with the new recorder, I love how I had no idea of what it has captured for me, only later when the track loaded on the computer did I get to see if it captured anything worthwhile.  This was the case with Blackbird - alarm calls (Track 3 on disc 2).  I think the peaks came in at about minus six db.  This year was my first time to use Contact microphones and a Hydrophone.    
At the beginning of April my dad Desmond died, he was 89, a great age.  Apart from Covid, we could see he wasn’t going to live much longer, he had been deteriorating noticeably for months up to that.  Why then are the covers for the two discs so strange ?  
A birdsong production should have birds on it !   My dad was big into sun power and indeed wind power even long before it became popular.  Over by my workshop he had placed a few sun power panels on the wall, these were wired into a small room to a panel on the wall with six switches.  I thought it a good way to remember him by including a picture of part of his panel for disc one front cover.  I was going to include the six switches in the picture, but my heart of hearts said no, it didn’t look good, too much scruffy brown, but I include it in the zipped folder (If you are buying it on Bandcamp)so you can see what I am talking about.  I had almost chosen it, as it occurred to me one morning that the six switches are like the levels of lockdown (I hate that term, but I have to use it here) thankfully we didn’t have a level six, maybe that is like in a movie I saw where the authorities came and boarded up a house with the people still inside.  In the end I used the part of the photo with the meter.   
The butterflies . . . Dessie we call him, was always interested in butterflies, that is where I got my interest in nature, as a child he used to bring us for walks up along the canal to see the wild flowers and butterflies.  The picture comes from one drawer of his small collection of Irish butterflies he put together maybe around the late 1940’s or 1950’s ??  Very few of them are even in one piece now, this drawer just looked the part, it was all mixed up and spoiled like the year had been, the summer we never really had, at least not the way we wanted or had planned it.

A Strange Year - Disc One - (Album Sample)

This is a recording I made at a large Weaver nest in Etosha NP, Namibia. Longer version and more details at https://youtu.be/K8qNPMqECI0

Secret Life Of A Weaver Nest

Slow soundscapes from the Amazon rainforest. Longer version at  
https://youtu.be/66RWAfuKPq4

Hot Afternoon In The Amazon

Award winning sound recordist, audio director and expedition leader - Dune: Part Two | Mufasa: The Lion King | Horizon Forbidden West | Wordscapes

Congo Basin Rainforest - Afternoon - Loud Cicadas

George Vlad