The lovely rich song of a Blackbird at dawn, as a gentle icy wind blows through the trees on the edge of Redhouse Wood, North Yorkshire
5.40am 11th April 2021.
MKH8020/30MS in reflector to SD MixPre-3

Blackbird song

This Song Thrush has been singing superbly for the last few days outside our back door. We're lucky to have at least 3 more in the village doing just the same. Here he is at 5am this morning, in a fresh breeze and light rain.
MKH8020/30 MS in reflector; SD MixPre-3. 9th May 2021 North Yorkshire

Song Thrush

A flock of 55 Goldfinches singing in the top of a breezy oak outside our kitchen door.
2pm 26.1.22. MKH8020/30 MS in Reflector, SD MixPre-3

Goldfinch singing flock

Corn Bunting Song

A collection of fox cub recordings made overnight on 3rd June 2022, the mics placed 1m above their earth in a very handy old crab apple tree.
Primo EM172 AB to Sony PCM-M10. Hessay, Yorkshire

Fox Cubs

A medley of Curlew bubbling calls, recorded in Yorkshire and Northumberland

Curlew - Bubbling

The sound of mason bees coming & going, munching wet mud before zooming off with it to build their nests. I believe the species is Osmia bicornis.
Recording in my garden in North Yorkshire, 3pm 24th April 2020, using 2 x DPA4060 placed in the mud, to SD MixPre-3

Red Mason Bees munching mud

Wildlife sound recordists take advantage of the lack of traffic on Christmas morning, but it means a cold early winter start. These are extracts from a continuous 3-hour recording beginning at 5am on Christmas morning 2022 at a reservoir 3km from my house, eventually spoiled only by a transatlantic airliner.
At the start, Goosander call quietly then move away, with calls of Mallard, Greylag & Pink-footed goose, all roosting on the water. A distant Red Fox barks from 15:35, the Pinkfeet take off at 23:10, and then small groups of Greylag depart as the Goosanders gather and splash about in the middle of the lake.
North Yorkshire. Sennheiser MKH60s to SD MixPre-3

Christmas Morning Wildfowl

The well-known colony of Arctic terns around the chapel on Inner Farne, Northumberland, with the occasional passing Sandwich tern.
Wear a hat!
Sony ECM55s in reflector to Sony TCD-D8 DAT. 2pm 17th May 2004

Arctic Terns, Inner Farne

After several days of observation, I finally fixed a microphone within a couple of metres of our rather sensitive Little Owls, as they prepare to nest, just 120m from my study. These are some of the calls recorded during the night of 19-20th March 2023.
Hessay, North Yorkshire

Little owls, North Yorkshire, Spring 2023

Having placed my mics in seaweed on the shoreline, I retreat to the end of 100m cable, sit in my car with a flask of tea and wait for the feeding birds to gather around. Redshank and starlings dominate, a bar-tailed godwit feeds close by. At the end a hunting Merlin causes them all to fly off with a whoosh of wings.
Boulmer Northumberland
Sennheiser MKH60/30MS, SD722. 9am 31 Dec 2008

Shorebirds & Starlings in Seaweed

I have microphones permanently placed in this old hollow ash tree, cabled back to my study. This year it holds nesting Little Owls and Jackdaws, and last Sunday morning produced a summer cacophony of begging Jackdaw nestlings, a hooting male Little Owl and his nestlings hissing, juvenile Rooks, Stock Dove, Wood Pigeon and hedgerow birds (plus traffic on the nearby A59).
North Yorkshire, 5am 4th June 2023
Primo 172 to Zoom F3; 120m cable (mono)

A Old Ash Tree in June

A documentary piece prepared for the Wildlife Sound Recording Society back in 1991. Reel-to-reel, razor blades and splicing tape. Happy Days!

Common Crossbill - A Short Documentary

Garden snail feeding on cabbage. Recorded 1979, Hull

Garden Snail eating

The wonderful sound of a flock of Fieldfares calling and taking flight from a hedgerow.
MKH416T x2

Fieldfare Flock

Common Crossbills indulging in 'communal singing' on a cold frosty morning in November 1990 in Kielder Forest in Northumberland, during the spectacular 1990/91 irruption that saw probably 40,000+ individuals in the forest. For me this is one the best sound experiences in the Border Forests.
Sennheiser MKH405T in reflector, Nagra E reel-to-reel recorder

Crossbill communal singing

Dawn chorus over the floodplain meadows of Wheldrake Ings NR, a rich mix of wildfowl with woodland birds behind. I've left the gas gun bird scarers in!
MKH60s, SD MixPre 3. 5.30am 30th March 2024

Wheldrake Ings at Dawn, Easter Saturday

FAO WSRS Forum. Raindrop ?artefact. MKH40/30 Zoom F3. 48kHz 32FP

Gadwall.240408.008

Eight mute swans land on thick ice on a lake, then trudge into the open water. Contact mic on surface of ice on edge of Lake. Northumberland
More at simontelliott.wordpress.com

Mute - Swans - Landing - On - Ice

Psarocolius montezuma recorded at a nesting colony, near Turrialba, Costa Rica. 5.30am 2nd March 2018. Primo 172 mics AB to SONY PCM-M10
Overall winner of 2019 Competition of Wildlife Sound Recording Society
https://simontelliott.wordpress.com/2018/03/27/some-birds-have-all-the-luck/

Montezuma Oropendola

Winner of the Creative Class, WSRS 2017 Competition. 
Created in Reaper using samples of my own recordings of: Red deer hind alarm; common frog (hydrophone); whistling tree frog (St Lucia); rock hyrax (Zimbabwe); great green bush cricket; redshank; curlew; wild goat (female); blackbird; tawny owl; long-eared owl young; great spotted woodpecker; capercaillie; cuckoo; teal female; ruddy duck male.
Inspired by the great Delia Derbyshire and her title track for Jeffery Boswall's BBC Wildlife Safari to the Argentine

Wild Beat

A small flock of about 10 adults and young diving for fish and calling offshore at Hauxley Northumberland in late July.

Roseate tern

A Dawn Chorus with a difference. Curlews leaving the roost in the twilight on a cold February morning at Druridge Pools - a beautiful sound.
MKH8020/30 MS in reflector to SD MixPre-3

Curlews

A pair of moorhens calling at 1 am on our pond. Typical advertising 'kurruk' call followed by murmur and mild alarm calls. March. MKH60s to SD MixPre-3

Moorhen

The amazing rhythmic sound of streams of thousands of oxygen bubbles being released during photosynthesis from a piece of pondweed - Hornwort (Ceratophyllum demersum). Recorded in a pond and later in a bowl. Sunny. Air temp 18 deg C. DolphinEar Pro to SD MixPre 3. Hessay, Yorkshire April 2020.
https://simontelliott.wordpress.com/2020/04/17/a-miracle-of-nature-the-sound-of-a-plant/

Hornwort photosynthesis

A short piece about Little Grebe vocabulary. 
Winner: Grand Prix Audio 2016, Jean Thevenot Medal, 65th International Amateur Recording Contest Recording of the Year 2016, British Amateur Audio Recording Contest, 2010 Wildlife Sound Recording Society Documentary Competition.

The Little Grebe

Winner of the 'Creative' Class, WSRS 2015 Competition . Different species of wildfowl make distinctive non-vocal sounds as they take off from the water. My aim with this mix was to create a sound picture of all the different take off sounds to be heard on one particular lake in Northumberland. But it begins with a recording made inside a float plane in the Maldives...

Take Off!

5 am on Lochdon, Isle of Mull, Scotland
includes curlew, cuckoo, oystercatcher, willow warbler and annoying canada geese
Winner Habitat Class WSRS Competition 2012
3 May 2012 MKH8020/30 reflector;SD722

Five O'Clock Loch

A pair of Common Buzzards are calling from the forest on a foggy damp day, water dripping from the tall spruce trees. They are anxious at my presence near their recently fledged young.
Northumberland July 2017
MKH8020/30 MS in 20" reflector to SD722

Buzzards

Wildlife sounds from the North Pennines AONB, England.
Winner of the WSRS Documentary Contest 2018

The North Pennines

I've been recording wildlife sounds since 1968. Member of Wildlife Sound Recording Society since 1975, and currently their Sound Magazine Editor. Special interest in vocabulary recording. I rarely use any studio processing, believing that attention to good fieldcraft should render this unnecessary. 
Winner of several UK & international awards for wildlife sound recording.
https://www.xeno-canto.org/contributor/FFFADKCCII
Blog - http://simontelliott.wordpress.com/
Twitter - @soniximon 
BBC - https://tinyurl.com/y4laf7tb

Simon T Elliott

Pinned to spotlight

Popular tracks