Recorded within a quarter mile of the centre of Hailsham. With thanks to Charlie Peverett for the tip-off. 
Astonishingly, I managed to get very close to this bird’s chosen perch, on a small remaining piece of scrub near the town centre, for this recording, and caught just a couple of minutes of song uninterrupted by traffic, teens shortcutting through the scrub, or the sound of my own stomach rumbling. 
Zoom F4
Behringer C2 XY stereo pair
Normalisation, high pass filter and noise reduction applied. Small cuts for extraneous sounds.

Nightingale 14-05-21

A brief walk in the gardens at Pickhams, in search of calling young tawny owls ...

Tawny owl chicks, Pickhams

Mystery bird call/song at Barcombe

Bill clatter from nesting white storks greeting mates returning to the nest, Knepp Estate, Dial Post, West Sussex.
Zoom F4; Sennheiser ME-66/K6; Rode blimp; Mono; NR 9db; HPF 500Hz; Compressed and normalised;

Knepp 14-5-22

White stork bill clatter Knepp

White Dyke Lane 14-5-22

Water Rail - White Dyke Lane 14-5-22

Sedge warbler song is similar to reed warbler, but more insistent, more angry almost - less patient! This particular bird started up right in front of me as I prepared to record reed warblers.

White Dyke Lane - 14-5-22

Sedge Warbler - White Dyke Lane 14-5-22

The wetlands' alarm clock. You KNOW when you've been Cetti'd! A simple song, but a very effective one.

Cetti's warbler - White Dyke Lane 14-5-22

As I stood by the reed beds in the early morning, breeze-free sunshine, I realised that there was a crackling sound coming from the reeds themselves. I take this to be caused by expansion of the reed stems as the sun warms them.

Reeds cracking in sun - White Dyke Lane 14-5-22

White Dyke Farm ambience 6:30am - White Dyke Lane 14-5-22

Song thrush, recorded in my urban back garden, using Zoom H2n recorder, XY stereo setup, manual level.
Processing (Audacity):
Noise reduction: non-song section profiled and reduced by 10dB
High-pass filter: 1000Hz, roll-off 6dB per octave
Overall gain raised by 21dB

Birdsong

Song Thrush, Hailsham, 9-5-20

I was awake late so decided to stay up to see in the sunrise. At around 3:45, I set up the F4 to record the ambience of the pre-dawn chorus. There was a little blue sky and lots of gull noise, but a few other birds start to come through - see what you can spot.
Zoom F4 & Behringer C2 stereo XY pair; HPF 250Hz 
Audacity; gain +9dB; HPF 1000Hz; minor cuts for distant traffic noise

Pre-dawn chorus

Experiments in amateur field recording, mostly birds.

On The Level

Popular tracks