Would love to visit this place one day. Always enjoy your recordings from here Lang.

What a vibrant soundscape! I feel suddenly so much more positive about the day. So much activity for such cold (to a Southern Californian) weather!

During a mid-March visit to Big Bend National Park in Texas, I recorded this immersive binaural soundscape at dawn in Santa Elena Canyon. It features wind blowing through a dense thicket of Carrizo Cane (an invasive species from Asia that is now common along the Rio Grande), which produces clicks and clatters as gusts pass through the stiff, bamboo-like reeds. Ravens nest in the canyon and croak repeatedly as they fly up and down the Rio Grande River, their calls echoing off the steep cliffs above. Such a pleasing, enveloping mix of the sounds of the wind, ravens and reeds!. Please wear headphones for optimal immersion!

Recorded by Lang Elliott on March 17, 2021 shortly before sunrise. © Lang Elliott, All Rights Reserved.

Wind, Ravens, Reeds

Enjoy this lovely late winter dawn chorus recorded around 7am on March 30, 2022, in Shindagin Hollow, near Brooktondale NY. Various birds sound off against a backdrop of the gurgle of water flowing over beaver dams. Species heard include Blue Jay, Song Sparrow, Red-winged Blackbird, Common Grackle, Hairy Woodpecker, Mallard, and American Crow (and perhaps more that I didn't notice?). Temperature was around 28F with no wind.

© Lang Elliott, musicofnature.org

The Leading Edge of Spring

NOTE: This is a binaural soundscape ... please listen using headphones! Otherwise, you may not appreciate the magic.

I always strive to keep my ears well-tuned, in order to perceive uplifting soundscapes that might easily escape notice, but sometimes I am not quite up to the task. Such was the case in late July of 2018.

I met up with two recording friends at one of my favorite wild areas … Shindagin Hollow in upstate New York, near where I live. We were very glad to see one another and immediately began chatting about this and that as we hooked up our recording equipment (they with parabolic reflectors and me with my binaural soundscape microphone). Then we dispersed, heading into the forest in different directions, each hoping to capture something of value.

It was then that I paused for a moment just to take in the scene … a foggy misty morning following a rainy night … the deep forest of hemlocks and hardwoods … drip from leaves in all directions … and subtle bird songs. I took a long slow breath and began to amble down the trail. At that moment, a wood thrush caught my attention, singing in the distance though quite clear. I stopped and listened more attentively … another was sounding off from even farther away, and a very faint one as well, unless I was just imagining it. And did I just hear a hermit thrush, buried in the mix?

Oh my, I almost did not notice … there, right next to the road, a lone ground cricket trilling prominently from the gravel. How could I have missed such an obvious sound? And then I detected a barred owl, hooting way off in the distance. And a mourning dove, just audible, cooing softly time and again.

Suddenly, I shook myself awake, finally aware of the miracle before me! The magic I was hoping to find somewhere down the trail was actually right next to me, fully and elegantly expressed! I did not need to walk down the trail in search of anything because nature was already showering me with an exalted mix, an elixir so pure and powerful that it thrilled my entire being, but only after I became fully receptive to it. Had I kept walking, I would have missed it entirely. Thank you wood thrush for breaking the spell of my self absorption, for unplugging my ears and inviting me into the here and now!

So finally I jumped into action … I quickly set up my soundscape mic, hit record, and prayed that nothing would interrupt this amazing concert so freely given. How careful we must be to keep our minds calm and quiet and our senses free of interference, so that we do not miss the extraordinary beauty that nature showers upon us, sometimes subtly, and often when we least expect it to arrive.

© Lang Elliott, Music of Nature. All Rights Reserved.

Thrush Dripscape

Exquisite dawn chorus featuring several Wood Thrushes sounding off at first light, with a gurgling brook nearby. Recorded at 5:15am, July 20, 2023 in Shindagin Hollow, near Brooktondale, New York. © Lang Elliott, musicofnature.com

Please listen with headphones!

Wood Thrushes Singing at Dawn with Stream Gurgle

Wood Thrushes Singing At Dawn with Stream Gurgle

The sounds of a new day in the African bush. This album was recorded in Northern Tuli Game Reserve in Botswana and features the diverse sounds of birds and wildlife in an ecotone of mopane woodland and arid savanna.

Botswana: Dawn in Tuli Wilderness

Botswana: Dawn in Tuli Wilderness - Album Sample

A winter soundscape from the rolling hills of upstate New York. 8am, 16 March 2013, Shindagin Hollow, near Brooktondale, New York.

Incredibly relaxing, with varied bird sounds set against the gentle trickling of a mountain brook. Listen for the songs and calls of Blue Jay, Pileated Woodpecker, White-breasted Nuthatch, Black-capped Chickadee, and American Crow.

This is absolutely my favorite winter soundscape to date, at least from the area around where I live. During most of the winter months, the landscape is rather devoid of natural sounds, except (of course) for the excited gurgling of brooks and whooshy breeze in the forest canopy.  On this fine day, however, birds kept chiming-in, no doubt in anticipation of the unfolding of spring.

Winter Birdscape

A binaural night-scape featuring the distant hoots of Great Horned Owls set again the gentle tinkling of Aravaipa Creek. Distant Yellow-breasted Chats also periodically sound off. Recorded 2 May 2017 on Nature Conservancy property near the eastern edge of the Aravaipa Canyon Wilderness Area in southeastern Arizona.

Please Listen Using Headphones!

Night Owls (Aravaipa Canyon Waterscape)

A lovely binaural night-scape featuring a cricket chorus set against the gentle tinkling of Aravaipa Creek (listen especially for the gentle pulsating chirps of a Snowy Tree Cricket). Recorded 30 April 2017 on Nature Conservancy property near the eastern edge of the Aravaipa Canyon Wilderness Area in southeastern Arizona.

Please Listen Using Headphones!

Gentle Crickets (Aravaipa Canyon Waterscape)

A magical frog and insect chorus recorded in a swampy area deep in the rainforest. Listen in particular for the remarkable and otherworldly mumbling and churring calls of an unidentified frog, periodically sounding off from trees overhead. Note: This is a binaural recording so please listen using headphones.

Recorded near Sani Lodge in Ecuador's lowland rainforest. © Lang Elliott, All Rights Reserved.

Ecuador 2018 - Sani Lodge

Frog Chorus in Rainforest Swamp

It is late summer. We have just arrived at Felsenthal National Wildlife Refuge in southern Arkansas, a land of swamps and forest. At dusk, a thunderstorm passes by in the distance. The storm recedes, darkness prevails, and rain begins to fall.

We walk into a pine stand and sit quietly on a moss-covered log. Raindrops hit shrub leaves and plop softly upon the spongy bed of needles below. Crickets trill, their gentle songs are soothing to our ears. We close our eyes and allow the sounds to flow around and into us. So calm and peaceful, here in the pine woods, after the storm.

August 6, 2016 at 9pm. Felsenthal National Wildlife Refuge near Moro Bay, Arkansas.

Night Into Day

After the Storm

Recording of the final stages of the dawn chorus at castle wood near gifford with light rain and two roe deer barking

PS RoeDeerBarks Gifford LightRain DawnChorus 20.05.13 5.10am 96KHz24bit 4

Hi Friends! I am a professional nature recordist who travels to wild areas throughout North America and sometimes beyond. My current focus is to gather  immersive binaural 3D soundscapes that effortlessly transport listeners (using headphones) into nature and have a positive and healing effect on the mind, body and spirit.

The Leading Edge of Spring

Lang Elliott – Music of Nature

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