'Windy dawn quietude' might sound like a contradiction, but the recording earns the label 'Quietude' thanks to the complete absence of any anthropogenic noise. To be sure, the wind soughing through Mountain Ash forest and soft tree ferns dominates the soundscape, but the Eastern Smooth Froglets and the small birds of dawn nevertheless make their presence clearly heard. This excerpt from a longer recording, made in Great Otway National Park, Victoria, begins at Second Light.

Good quality headphones (preferably with a 'flat frequency response', and open-backed) are recommended, especially as this is a binaural recording. The original 96/32 recording has been converted to 48/24, but is otherwise entirely unprocessed.

Recorded on the land of the indigenous Gadubanud (Katabanut) peoples.

2023.09.07 Windy Dawn Quietude beside the Smooth Froglet Pool. Early Spring.

North Sea island Spiekeroog, June 2025
Clippies EM272, Zoom F3

In the dunes, early morning: herring gulls, skylarks

This recording was meant to be a simple, practical, innocuous, and unambitious gear test, purely for the purpose of trialling a mid-side microphone arrangement with improvised windshield. There was no intention of making a 'serious' nature field recording, because I know this location very well, and I know exactly what to expect. Yet, while sitting there, intently listening as I was recording, some kind of story, a narrative, an essay - or rather, a simple, literal reality - naturally, and unnaturally, spontaneously and yet not merely spontaneously, unfolded in and through the soundscape... Nothing overstated; rather, thanks to distance, quite subtle, far away, and detached; and yet, perhaps, all the more telling and disturbing, precisely for that reason. And so, I decided to include the whole unedited and unaltered recording, here, under the banner of 'Problematic Interpenetrations'.

The word 'incroachment' is probably my own neologism: the usual word is 'encroachment'. The prefix 'en-' implies something approaching from 'outside', whereas the prefix 'in-' suggests something 'encroaching' from 'inside' (yes, that is paradoxical). The reason for this choice or construction of a 'new' (or at least uncommon or unfamiliar) word has to do with the way in which the sound or noise of something happening at a distance, from 'outside', but gradually approaching, is already present, here, from where it can definitely already be heard. Although the source of the sound has not yet physically arrived, and may still be far away, its sound or noise is already present, here, and that presence is not merely a sign, an index, a premonition: it already has subtle but real causal influences and effects. Creatures, plants, beings, are already responding...

Hearing is a very special, important, and vital sense, in this respect. There are many things we can hear, long before we can see them, or be touched by them. Yes, we can see lightning before we hear thunder, if it is within view of our eyes. But we can also hear thunder long before we can see lightning, if it is beyond the reach of our eyes. As Gordon Hempton has observed: while we sleep, our eyes are closed; but our ears remain open. This fact was crucial to our ancestors' survival. Is it the case, today, that we value what our eyes tell us, far more than what our ears tell us? Are we losing, or have we already lost, our ancestors' attunement to the survival value of simple hearing?

2025.06.13 The Incroachment. A Meditative Reflection. Winter.

Dawn chorus recorded above Dalrymple Creek, Main Range National Park, Goomburra Section, 5th August 2025. Zoom F1, PUI 5024 capsules

Dalrymple Creek Dawn Chorus

Dawn chorus on the wetland. You can hear these species on the recording: great reed warbler (primarily), common cuckoo and mute swan
Date: 8. 6. 2025
Time: 4.05 - 5.30 am
Weather conditions: temperature 16°C, wind: 2m/s, partly cloudy
Place: Vranovice, South Moravia
Equipment: Telinga parabolic dish

Great reed warbler - dawn chorus on the wetland

Just after dawn, this recording captures farmlife as day begins, with a cockerel calling intermittently and a group of sparrows calling from a nearby tree.

Recorded 08.08.2025
Zoom F3 + 2 x DPA 4060s

Dawn On The Farm - Florac, Cevennes, France

This soundscape was recorded from the top of a magnificant treehouse built in an ancient Chesnut tree in the forest surrounding the Ferme des Cevennes. We hear gentle summer birdsong as well as one of the farm donkeys calling out and resonating beautifully through the valley. We also hear a woodpecker pecking against a nearby tree.

Recorded 08.08.2025
Zoom F3 + 2 x DPA 4060s

Dawn In The Treehouse - Florac, Cevennes, France

Dans les chardons on entend l’Anthidie à manchettes (Anthidium manicatum) qui s’affaire à collecter les poils des feuilles ce qui lui vaut le surnom d’abeille cotonnière.
« Anthidium manicatum est une espèce d'hyménoptères de la famille des Megachilidae. Comme d'autres espèces de son genre, on l'appelle abeille cotonnière à cause de son comportement : gratter les poils des feuilles comme celles de la Molène Bouillon-blanc ou de l'Épiaire laineuse qu'elle met en boule et qu'elle transporte sous son corps pour en revêtir son nid. »
source Wikipedia : https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthidium_manicatum

European wool carder bee
In the thistles, we can hear the Wool Carder Bee (Anthidium manicatum) busily collecting hairs from the leaves.
“Anthidium manicatum is a species of bee in the family Megachilidae. They get the name "carder" from their behaviour of scraping hair from leaves such as lamb's ears (Stachys byzantina). They carry this hair bundled beneath their bodies to be used as a nest lining.”
source Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthidium_manicatum

Abeille cotonnière

MORE JET$ IN THE AIR!
MORE JET$ IN THE AIR!

WE DON’T BLOODY CARE
AS LONG AS PROFIT’$ THERE!

HO HO! HO HO!
PACK YOUR BAG$
OFF YOU GO!
HERE’$ YOUR TICKET
YOU CAN $TICK IT!

MORE JET$ IN THE AIR!

HO HO! HO HO!
MILLIONAIRE!
BILLIONAIRE!

MORE JET$ IN THE AIR!

____________________________

According to FlightRadar24's aviation statistics, in August 2025 the highest daily seven-day moving average of global flights was 259,858, with the actual number of flights peaking on 7th August 2025 with 276,831 in one day. As you will see from the graph in the track image, cited from FlightRadar24's 2025 statistics (covering January to August 2025), the number of daily flights just keeps increasing... And we keep hearing of new international runways and terminals being planned and built in many countries and cities.
____________________________

This recording was made on Wednesday 19th August 2025 in a eucalypt forest in the foothills of Adelaide, just three kilometres (approximately two miles) from where I live, during mid afternoon. A pair of Clippy EM172 omni microphones, plugged into a Zoom F3, were clipped onto tree twigs and left alone while I continued walking, enjoying a sunny winter's afternoon stroll, surrounded by numerous familiar species of local native birds. And, of course, numerous jets.

Some might say, "Well, the birds and other native animals carry on their lives, despite the noise and all that goes with it. So what's the problem?" Yes, indeed, they do, as best they can, because they must, and have no other choice, unless or until they become endangered or extinct; and so do we, because we, too, must, and have no other choice. But isn't THAT precisely the fundamental problem? To put it quite bluntly: aren't we being forced to live - to survive - under the rule of a kind of environmentally toxic fascism, dictated by an inflexible, irrational, and insensitive political economy?

I believe wholeheartedly in a free world. But I absolutely do not endorse the ancient lie that 'justice is the advantage of the stronger', and that those who have contrived economic, political, military, financial and cultural advantage have the putative right to tell us what 'justice' is, and to tell us what we are required, even against our wills, to suffer, in order that their own 'advantage' rules. Nor do I believe that if - let's say, for the sake of the argument - one million people are persuaded to subscribe to, support, and hence also enjoy the ample benefits of, such an irrational and unjust political economy, that the objection of one thousand, or one hundred, or one dozen people, or even of just  ONE unpersuaded person -  who disagree(s) with and reject(s) that way of being and doing things for fundamentally valid and true reasons, should be overruled, rejected and subjected, merely on the basis of a simplistic, crude and primitive numerical count! A 'majority' is not necessarily 'right', merely by being a 'majority'! And yet, people find this very plain and incontrovertible fact so remarkably difficult to see, to understand, and to accept!

Let's not forget that Hitler was voted into power 'democratically' by a majority of voters. As Hitler recognised, very early in the game, the simplistic concept and system of 'democracy' can be very conveniently and readily manipulated by persuasion through ideology and mass media. 'Democracy' and 'Fascism' do not necessarily stand in logical opposition. When populists, hegemonists and dictators, alike, cannot control by persuasion, they will resort to force. And vice versa. No one has yet resolved the fundamental problem of how to actualise a genuinely 'free society'... And what, indeed, IS a 'genuinely free society'...?

2025.08.19 MORE JET$ IN THE AIR!

This was the first time I could listen to a longer sequence of ants stridulating in their nest – and I was and am totally fascinated by these really weird sounds. Of course, there is also a lot of crawling und running going on....
Recorded in the German Alps (Allgäu) with JrF ecoutic microphone into Leaf Audio field amp into Mixpre 6ii

Stridulating ants

COMMON SANDPIPER (Actitis hypoleucos)
SONG IN DISPLAY FLIGHT

This sound-portrait of a Common Sandpiper on its breeding grounds reveals the insistent and highly rhythmic "sewing-machine" song, given  as the bird circles around the loch side just after midnight on the 6th June 1997.  At times, insects drone close against the windcage.

The atmospheric roar of distant breakers on the Uig Saltmarsh can be heard in the background, along with "bleats" from Snipe, and faint calls from Ringed Plover and Greenshank.

The title of the piece is the Gaelic name for this species, meaning literally "Fidler-Bird by the Loch".

Uig Saltmarsh, Timsgarry, Uig Penninsula, Isle of Lewis.

Captured with  a Sony MZ-R3 Portable MiniDisc Recorder, using a pair of Sennheiser K6ME66 short-gun electrets.   Note that this is my only Soundcloud item in which I have used electret microphones and a non-linear recorder

Fidhleirbord - An - Locha - Common Sandpiper

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

2023.09.07 Windy Dawn Quietude beside the Smooth Froglet Pool. Early Spring.

𝕳𝖊𝖆𝖗𝖎𝖓𝖌 𝕭𝖊𝖎𝖓𝖌𝖘

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