First Light, Second Light, Sunrise and Early Morning. Late Summer in Mallee Country, South Australia.

A NOTE ON THE 'THREE TWILIGHTS' AND SUNRISE. There are three widely accepted categories of 'twilight' (before sunrise and after sunset), commonly labelled 'civil twilight', 'nautical twilight', and 'astronomical twilight'. These have specific geometric definitions. Civil twilight is when the geometric centre of the Sun is between 6° below the horizon and the horizon itself. Nautical twilight is when the geometric centre of the Sun is between 12° and 6° below the horizon. With astronomical twilight, the geometric centre of the Sun is between 18° and 12° below the horizon. (Cf. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twilight.) These three twilights are not merely arbitrary conventions: they have a real phenomenological basis, as the common names given to them clearly imply. 

'Astronomical twilight' assumes that there is no anthropogenic or natural light pollution, and that the sky is clear. This earliest solar twilight, while extremely subtle to the naked eye, can interfere with very sensitive astronomical observations. 'Nautical twilight' implies that there is sufficient faint light for sailors to discern the horizon as an aid to navigation. 'Civil twilight' implies that, in urban environments, artifical night lighting is no longer required; or, to put it another way, twilight becomes bright enough to be discernible despite general urban artificial light pollution.

Out in the Mallee, one is a long way both from the sea and from urban lighting: the names 'nautical' and 'civil' twilight are irrelevant. But the twilight phases themselves are not. Typically, when planning night to dawn recordings, I make use of a geodetic calculator to find out the twilight and sunrise times of the particular recording location. (Moon phase, rise and set times can also be important.) From experience, I've learned that, far from urban environments, with their apparently unavoidable noise and light pollution, the twilight times generally correspond quite precisely with distinctly different phases of the 'dawn chorus'. This present recording is a good example. As is typical, the first stirrings of the dawn chours begin very close to 'nautical twilight', or what I prefer to call 'first light', which began at approximately 04:51 (ACST). There is a very definite change in content and form of bird activity with the onset of 'civil twilight', which I prefer to call 'second light', at approximately 05:22 (ACST). And finally, with sunrise, at approximately 05:48 (ACST), there is another even more pronounced change in bird and other animal activity. But all of this unfolds, in its own natural time, with its own natural rhythm, in a setting of deep quietude, openness, and stillness.

@bandcamp

2023.02.19 Quiet Dawn of Souls (Mallee Country, Late Summer)

Selections from an open-ended soundscape archive. Recorded respectfully and mindfully within the country of the Meru and Danggali people.

Playlist photograph credit: Gilbert's Whistler, © Gunther Frensch (2022), birdlifephotography.org.au. Used with the kind permission of the photographer.

2020-2024 Sanctuary

Soundscapes, Soundscape Ecology, & Acoustic Ecology

Listening in a very quiet environment, or at a very quiet time, preferably with good quality headphones, at no more than a moderate volume, is very much recommended. These sounds of late summer dawn in Mallee country were widely dispersed. The original recording level was 60 dB, with a further 12 dB gain in post. Listening at a low to moderate volume will more faithfully re-present the original soundscape experience. Please refer to the Playlist description for some background information: https://soundcloud.com/hearingbeings/sets/2023-02-19-quiet-dawn-of-souls-mallee-country-late-summer.

At first light, the dawn songs of Spiny-cheeked Honeyeaters predominate, gracing the early dawn soundscape with a beautiful yet melancholy quality. Also occasional Owlet Nightjar calls (which have continued all through the night), Grey Butcherbirds, a couple of Emu 'drummings', some distant Ravens, amongst others; and, in the distance, briefly, a couple of strays that ought not to have been there at all.  Throughout, the sound of the wind rising and falling, through Mallee woodland of Eucalyptus and Casuarina trees.

Recorded respectfully on the land of the Meru and Danggali peoples.

2023.02.19 Quiet Dawn of Souls (First Light)

Listening in a very quiet environment, or at a very quiet time, preferably with good quality headphones, at no more than a moderate volume, is very much recommended. These sounds of late summer dawn in Mallee country were widely dispersed. The original recording level was 60 dB, with a further 12 dB gain in post. Listening at a low to moderate volume will more faithfully re-present the original soundscape experience. Please refer to the Playlist description for some background information: https://soundcloud.com/hearingbeings/sets/2023-02-19-quiet-dawn-of-souls-mallee-country-late-summer.

2023.02.19 Quiet Dawn Of Souls (Sunrise and Early Morning)

2023.02.19 Quiet Dawn Of Souls (Second Light)

An excerpt from dawn (from an unattended longer recording running from late afternoon to early morning) featuring a Grey Shrike-thrush who flew in close to the microphone rig, assuming various singing positions in relation to the microphones. The first-heard singing in this segment is that of a more distant Crested Bellbird, which continues throughout; the nearby Grey Shrike-thrush begins singing from 00:47.

This recording was made with a microphone rig comprising four supercardioid microphones in an IRT Cross /double NOS array. This is the raw original recording (all four tracks), without further gain, EQ, processing, or editing.

Recorded respectfully and mindfully on the land of the Meru and Danggali peoples.

Track photo credit: Grey Shrike-thrush photographed by David Jenkins (2019). (Photo source: https://birdsaspoetry.com/2019/06/22/saaturday-evening-post-37-rich-songster/)

2024.08.11 Grey Shrike-thrush, with Crested Bellbird. Dawn. Winter's End.

An excerpt from dawn (from an unattended longer recording running from late afternoon to early morning) featuring Gilbert's Whistler, singing with two distinctive kinds of calls, with some variations of each: characteristic 'chopping' calls, and melodic calls (in phrases comprising between one to four repetitions/transpositions of a melodic motif).

Other bird species heard include the Australian Magpie, Common Bronzewing, Crested Bellbird, Grey Butcherbird, Grey Shrike-thrush, Spiny-cheeked Honeyeater, Spotted Pardalote, Striated Pardalote, White-browed Babbler. Of mammals, a kangaroo barking and grunting, and what is most probably a feral goat bleating, can sometimes be heard in the distance.

This recording was made with a microphone rig comprising four supercardioid microphones in an IRT Cross /double NOS array. This is the  original recording (all four tracks), with only slight EQ applied (low cut of 6 dB/octave below 50 Hz, and a gentle bell curve with peak of +2 dB at 1900 Hz). Two passages from the one recording have been joined together but are otherwise unedited.

Recorded respectfully and mindfully on the land of the Meru and Danggali peoples.

Track image credit: Gilbert's Whistler, © Gunther Frensch (2022), https://birdlifephotography.org.au. Used with the kind permission of the photographer.

2024.08.11 Gilbert's Whistler at Dawn. Winter's End.

An excerpt from an attended dawn recording, sitting within a Sheoak grove, featuring a pair of Australian Ravens. There can be little doubt that the Raven has one of the most penetrating and far-reaching unbeautiful yet evocative and expressive voices of the Australian bush. An intriguing being.

This recording was made with a pair of large-diaphragm condenser omnidirectional microphones in AB array with 62 cm spacing, raised high on a lightweight lighting stand, in a different location from, but contemporaneously with, and in the same locality as, the following related recordings, which were made with an unattended rig:
https://soundcloud.com/hearingbeings/20240811-grey-shrike-thrush-with-crested-bellbird-winters-end
https://soundcloud.com/hearingbeings/20240811-gilberts-whistler-at-dawn-winters-end

Recorded respectfully and mindfully upon the land of the Meru and Danggali people.

Track image credit: JJ Harrison (https://www.jjharrison.com.au/), CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

2024.08.11 Pronouncements of Ravens at Dawn. Winter's End.

A long, unedited excerpt from the dawn section of an unattended overnight recording, featuring Crested Bellbirds performing a series of transpositions of their distinctive but (rhythmically and tonally) variable Bellbird song pattern. (At 20:10 one of them seems to push itself to the highest point of its vocal range.)

The recording was made with a microphone rig comprising four supercardioid microphones in an IRT Cross / double NOS array, in open Mallee country.

In this first stereo mixdown of the four isolated tracks of the fourfold array, because of the original stereo perspective, there appears to be only one main (near) vocalist (not counting those Bellbirds that are obviously much farther away). However, while later experimenting with other stereo perspectives made possible by the four tracks, it became clear that, in fact, more than one main (near) Bellbird vocalist was involved. For a different stereo perspective that reveals this differentiation: https://earth.fm/recordings/winter-dawn-in-mallee-country-with-crested-bellbirds/.)

Recorded respectfully and mindfully on the land of the Meru and Danggali peoples.

Track image credit: Male Crested Bellbird photographed by Indra Bone (South Australia, 2019). Source: https://inaturalist.ala.org.au/photos/43977723. (CC BY-NC). Below the photograph is a spectrogram of the recording.

2024.08.11 Crested Bellbirds: Transposition Display. Dawn. Winter's End. (1st stereo perspective)

Amidst the quiet calls of Chestnut-crowned Babblers, in this unedited excerpt from an overnight to morning recording, the singing of the Grey Shrike-thrush falls into two sections: in the first, the Shrike-thrush repeats a single familiar call, while in the second, it improvises more freely and lyrically. Some (not all) of the other birds heard include:  Australian Raven, Crested Bellbird, Emu, Galah, Grey Butcherbird, Spiny-cheeked Honeyeater, Striated Pardalote, Weebill....

Recorded with a pair of large-diaphragm condenser omnidirectional microphones in AB array with 62 cm spacing, with the microphones raised high on a lightweight lighting stand.

Recorded respectfully and mindfully on the land of the Meru and Danggali peoples.

Track image credit: Grey Shrike-thrush © Glenn Pure 2024 (https://birdlifephotography.org.au/). Used with permission.

2024.08.10 Grey Shrike-thrush with Chestnut-crowned Babblers. Morning. Winter's End.

The first episode in a new series of podcasts looking at – and listening to – the sounds of the world around us. The forthcoming instalments will look at all aspects of our noisy cosmos and how we listen to it, the stories we tell about it, and all the ideas, inventions, discoveries, possibilities and ideas that live in the realm of the audible. Written and produced by Tim Hinman. Supported by B&O PLAY

We kick off with the ambitiously titled episode "The Sound Of Life Itself" where we meet field recordist, sound ecologist and musician Bernie Krause.

01 – The Sound Of Life Itself

Paulus and Annie take to the studio to fight through acoustic ecology jargon in search of a better way to listen. 

Photo credit: Joel Rogers

Soundscapes In Crisis: A Love/Break-up Letter to Acoustic Ecology

Composed radio documentary about ecological sound art, broadcast on Resonance FM on 23rd June 2015 as part of Critical Waves Radio.

Critical Waves

'Ecoacoustics' - composed documentary for Critical Waves Radio (2015)

Documentary commissioned by basic.fm. Newcastle, England.
A two-part documentary investigating the history and influence of the Acoustic Ecology movement started by R. Murray Schafer in the 1970s.

Documentary - A Short History Of Acoustic Ecology: Part 1

An audio documentary by Chris Wood, Camara Miller and Nathan Clarkson. Mastered at The Banff Centre by Magdalena Kasparek.

The programme is an overview of soundscape studies and acoustic ecology featuring new and archive interviews with Hildegaard Westerkamp, Barry Truax and researchers from Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, Canada alongside recordings from the World Soundscape Project.

A Short History of Acoustic Ecology was commissioned by Pixel Palace for Basic FM

A Short History of Acoustic Ecology

𝔈𝔵𝔭𝔩𝔬𝔯𝔦𝔫𝔤 ℌ𝔢𝔞𝔯𝔦𝔫𝔤, 𝔱𝔥𝔢 ℌ𝔢𝔞𝔯𝔞𝔟𝔩𝔢, 𝔞𝔫𝔡 𝔱𝔥𝔢 ℌ𝔢𝔞𝔯𝔢𝔯, 𝔞𝔰 𝔞𝔫 𝔈𝔳𝔢𝔫𝔱, 𝔞 𝔐𝔬𝔡𝔢, 𝔞𝔫𝔡 𝔞 𝔇𝔦𝔪𝔢𝔫𝔰𝔦𝔬𝔫 𝔬𝔣 𝔅𝔢𝔦𝔫𝔤.

2023.02.19 Quiet Dawn Of Souls (Second Light)

𝕳𝖊𝖆𝖗𝖎𝖓𝖌 𝕭𝖊𝖎𝖓𝖌𝖘