The bull would like everyone to stop dawdling so they can just GET TO THE RIVER, PLEASE

Amidst the flurry of Pacific Wren chattering, a woodpecker (probably a Northern Flicker) calls out, "keer"

The cows do their best to keep up and keep in contact with frequent mews

A young male practices a weak bugle. One day he'll lead a family of his own.

Another voice I haven't had a moment to identify. A Steller's Jay? A Woodpecker?

Still practicing, that young Varied Thrush is really starting to improvise now

A Steller's Jay, seemingly happy the elk have moved on

As some of the herd seem to be lagging and getting chatty, the bull turns around for one last great bellow to get them to move

The microphones have a close visitor and a bird flys by, landing to examine

Hi Andy, this is a beautiful soundscape recording and I loved your description. May I ask, what soundscape recording setting did you used? Thank you also for your insightful mic setup descriptive and useful article. Cheers!

This is a recording of some interactions on a black grouse lek in the highlands of Scotland. 

It was recorded with a Sony M10 and a matched pair of Clippy EM172 mics.

AVIEMORE  - BLACK GROUSE LEK - EARLY MORNING - VERY CLOSE COOING AND HISSES 2.0 M10

Good headphones are recommended, as this is a binaural recording.

Black Swans amongst Australian Shelducks. Also, Grey Teals, Silver Gulls, Pacific Black Ducks, among others. An excerpt from a longer recording made between around 03:00 to 04:00, long before first light, in the Coorong region, near Narrung. Recent heavy rains inland have brought much fresh water downriver, reducing the salinity of the Coorong waters and adjacent lakes, which has resulted in a blessed influx of birds. The location of the recording is at least 15 kilometres from the Coorong, but traces of the Coorong's signature relentless deep roar are audible from here.

Recorded on land of the Ngarindjerri people that is now either National Park or privately owned pastoral land.

2022.02.20 Black Swans. Coorong. Night. Late Summer.

Two black woodpeckers hammering in duel, a wren can be heard in the background. 

Recorded :  24.03.2022,   3 pm.
Location:   Siebentischwald, Augsburg/Bavaria - Germany
ZOMM F8 - RODE NT5 MP - ORTF - Sourcefile: 96 KHz

Black Woodpecker - Wren Wood - Ambient - Forest - Field Recording - Nature

The eerie calls of an African scops owl in mopane woodland - South Luangwa National Park, Zambia. Recorded with Zoom F6 and Lom mikroUsi Pro microphones. Listen to more recordings from the African savanna at https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLCRlYmmK1sqpnPimVGFNUhmt1WtYhnsZc

African Scops Owl In The Savanna

Since 2018 we’ve released five albums from Berlin, Germany based composer Sven Laux, including his most recent collaboration with Fione and solo albums ‘Schachmatt’, ‘ODD’, his Home Diaries edition and 2020 and the extended version, Scattered Fragments of Separation (The Complete Story). Sven’s sound design has found its home in short films, advertisement and in audio branding but he also maintains his discography as an artist, focusing on deeply stirring cinematic themes.

A well-balanced contemporary sound awaits you in this latest edition ‘What Remains’ and you are urged by the title to consider what you think about when something is left over? The record uses a depth of sprawling orchestral timbres, across its at-first cryptically titled tracks, to set out the phases of processing an event. At first there is ‘patience’ and ‘hope’, then there is the passing of the event (‘the goodbye’) followed by ‘what remains’; the now. Memory may serve ‘the return’ and perhaps ‘the cohesion’ and for some, there may be ‘the ending’.

You may choose a past experience to relate with these titles or, you might choose to allow it to relate to the present day. It does not matter whether you think positively about something from the past, or whether you mourn something afterwards in a sad or melancholy way. Whether negative, positive or even indifferent, it is the contemplative environment that each track brings which will allow this record to become a thinking space; a ceremonial framework to process events.

Written and Produced by Sven Laux
Mastered by James Edward Armstrong
Artwork by Zoë Heath
Art and Design by Andrew Heath

What Remains

wlr124 Sven Laux - What Remains

On Saturday, 12 November 2022, South Australia, including the whole Adelaide region, experienced an uncharacteristic extended storm of unusual intensity. Several storm fronts, arriving from the NW over St Vincent's Gulf, hit Adelaide and the Fleurieu Peninsula. The storm has been described as "one of the strongest thunderstorms in recent memory",* causing flash flooding, wind gusts exceeding 100 km/h that tore down huge gum trees (many of which crushed houses, cars, and electricity lines), as well as flattening giant electricity pylons, leaving around a hundred thousand people without power. 

This recording, made in the Adelaide Hills (near Norton Summit), captures a sample of the first and mildest storm wavefront that day. (The recording begins at 10:30 in the morning. This abridged version selects two excerpts from the longer recording, chosen because of the poignant presence of bird calls audible between the peals of thunder. The highlighted parts of the spectrogram in the track image indicate the passages from the longer recording that were selected for this abridged version.) The microphones sheltered from the fairly light rain underneath a 'sweet pittosporum' or 'native daphne' tree (Pittosporum undulatum), native to southeastern Australia, but a 'declared plant' in South Australia ('a woody weed invading native local vegetation', due to widespread ornamental planting).

Travelling farther south immediately after this recording, I was able to intercept the next two storm wavefronts, which were far more intense. Although the storm was utterly awesome and spectacular (lightning bolts plunging into fields, exploding thunder tearing the atmosphere apart), it was impossible to find any spot from which to record the storm, because it brought with it an abundant lashing downpour of rain and wild tree-tossing winds. All the shelters in the state forests had iron rooves: the rain battering the rooves was deafening, drowning out even the peals of thunder.

In the end, I could only just sit and experience it. Which, after all, is the very best thing to do, with Nature. (Most of the time, at least. Not recommended when it gets this violent. Although I have to say that this was truly a very beautiful and awe-inspiring experience; and, personally, I'm very glad to have been out there to witness it. I'm also contemplating possible recording solutions, in case this ever happens again... Enraptured by thunderstorms as a spatial music of nature. All that I have said, here, is the simple truth.)
__________________________________________
*https://www.weatherzone.com.au/news/why-the-adelaide-storm-was-so-intense/925471
https://www.sapowernetworks.com.au/data/313806/12-november-storm-update-from-sa-power-networks/
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/11/18/australias-indigenous-people-call-for-seat-at-table-at-cop27
__________________________________________
Recorded with respect upon the land of the Kaurna people.

@Bandcamp

2022.11.12 Storm above the Hills. Late Spring. (Excerpt)

A long soundscape across Dawn in the Queets River Valley rainforest of the Olympic National Park. Starting in Astronomical Twilight, a small herd of Roosevelt Elk walks in from a distance, though a small forest glade, an away towards the Queets River bed.

Early Autumn rainfall and dropping Maple Leaves are the dominant sounds to begin, their pak-pak-spaks are a reminder that time passes, even in the still quiet of a moss-covered forest.

Highway 101 in less than 12 miles away, and distant traffic is funneled up the Valley, showing the difficulty of escaping human-generated sound. This has been mitigated somewhat with light processing, but close listening and inspection will make remnants evident. There are no other edits or processes committed.

I love the crisp cold air of the rainforests in the fall. Sounds, natural and human generated, carry into the distant. Tucked into my sleeping bag, I lay back in my small tent, listening to the forest awaken. Where once there was just the soft distant wash of the river, the elk are joined by the local birds. Steller's Jays shriek their song with grating-yet-amusing "CHA-CHA-CHA-CHAs". A Northern Saw-whet toots in the forest canopy. Young Varied Thrush practice their songs, not quite reaching the beautiful and haunting signature fluting of their predecessors, instead emitting a silly buzzer-bell-like noise. Pacific Wren singing at the end of their season and the occasional Kingfisher make an appearance as well. Noe of these complete with the sheer vibrance of the elk.

Roosevelt Elk or Roosevelt's Wapiti or Rainforest Elk are the largest remaining elk species in North America and thrive in shadowy silences of the Pacific Northwest's temperate rainforests. Bull's bugles and roars echo through the trees, becoming one of the signature sounds of the Olympic Mountains. The cows mew and squeal in return, listening for one another to not wander far astray.

The small herd is a tight-nit family group, a with one, maybe two, dominant bulls, five or six cows in their harem, and a handful of young. The dominant bull leads the group on a daily hike, down from the upper valley to the river and back again. Their bugles urge the group, both signaling the direction to go and scolding those that dawdle. As they pass through the glade, their heavy footfall on the vegetative floor thump-thump-thumps their presence as much as the vocalizations and the continued crushing of vegetation as they push by.

I can't get enough of their energy. They pull back frequently. No matter how many times I encounter them, Elk never cease to awe me.

Click through the comments below for some highlights!

Northwest Soundscapes

Queets River Valley Rainforest Dawn with Elk

Forest clearing near Nihujärve lake. Whooper Swans vocalise before taking off and heading elsewhere...
Other birds: Woodlark, Tree Pipit, Song Thrush, Wood Pigeon, Cuckoo, Eurasian Jay.

2. May 2022, Estonia

Morning soundscape with Whooper Swans

Atacama Desert is a collection of stereo and quad soundscapes recorded in the barren but amazingly beautiful desert plateau of Western Chile. Get it at https://mindful-audio.com/atacama-desert

MAFX027 Atacama Desert Demo

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

[Experiment] Trying the Shure MV88 mic on a iPhone for field recording (nature).   Not that I would want to do this very often, but it could be useful when better mics/recorders are not available in a given moment.   The photo shows the location where this recording was made (holding the iPhone, standing about 5 feet from the grass in lower middle of photo).

[Setup] Shure MV88 on an iPhone 10 with foam windscreen. Settings on app:  mid-side mode, max compression, flat EQ,   The quality is not bad for what it is.

The Shure MV88 is *not* a sensitive mic and certainly not great for nature field recording.  The manual even says it was designed to record in very loud environments like concerts, so it would not be good for recording a quiet soundscape.   However, for loud environments it seems OK.   These cricket frogs were so loud that I wore the headphones for ear protection even when not recording.  Without ear protection the frog calls were painfully loud (to give an idea of the ambient sound levels being recorded).

BTW, on an iPhone X I was not able to find a way to monitor audio while recording.  Gain was set by watching the meter on the app.  On phones that have plug-in headphones, apparently there is a way to monitor audio while recording.

iPhone field recording using Shure MV88 mic (frogs in forest)

Field Recordist / Sound designer
Shhhhh. Listening to nature.

To license sounds or for all other inquiries: info@andymartinsound.com

#naturesound #naturesoundscape #fieldrecording #naturesounds #savequiet #listentonature #soundscape

Queets River Valley Rainforest Dawn with Elk

Andy Martin, Field Recordist

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Andy Martin, Field Recordist

Andy Martin, Field Recordist

Andy Martin, Field Recordist

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