Urban Sounds

4 Sep 2022

Last year I captured calls from two chatting adult Whooper Swans at the Bothnian coast. This year they were accompanied by two juveniles. One night the conversation between the swans was intense, it almost felt listening to a concerto.  

Umeå commune, Västerbotten County (63.39 N, 19.54 E)

Primo-EM172s

03_06.14

Whooper Swan concerto

Sample from the 123 minute album "Borneo: Maliau Basin". 

Subtle birdsong & forest ambience with natural white noise from a stream in the background. Recorded in Maliau Basin, Sabah, Borneo.

Full album available for download from https://wildambience.com/albums/borneo-nepenthes-forest/

Borneo: Maliau Basin

Borneo: Maliau Basin - Album Sample

Location lower parts in Himalayas.
3 short recordings in MP3 - it was 17days hiking trip into those ancient forests . They take breath away with huge trees and mixed vegetation on altitude 3200meters above the sea

Some recordings are available on bandcamp or better CONTACT me on e mail kkavitec@gmail.com - check it here:

gregorvida.bandcamp.com/community

My youtube channel:
www.youtube.com/channel/UCXJShm7wdmdq70_2_iq3yWQ

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/gregorvida_soundrecording/

India Himalayas primeval forest sounds- 3 short recordings

Take a listen to a 4 minute overnight journey through an Australian forest. This short compilation was taken during a long 18 hour recording session deep in the Australian forest. It starts at about 4pm, and finishes about 10am the next day. The recording starts with bees nearby in the undergrowth, followed by bird life as the light fades into night. The tropical rain starts about 1130pm and continues all night, creating a magical dance on the leaves and stones covering the ground.

The laughing Kookaburra wakes first and announces the first glimmer of light on the horizon just as the rain starts to fade away, followed by many more birds calling and chatting to their mates. 

The bees finally wake up and end the recording very busy... just like they did the previous day. The circle of life in about 4 minutes. Enjoy the immensely gorgeous cacophony of the Australian forest.

Captured on a Zoom F3, with Em272 Clip mics.

Australian Forest Life

Recording was done during two days of constant recording at a small forest beaver pond. Both microphones were hidden between the logs directly lying on the lodge. The beaver family consists of 2 parents, 2 young beavers born two years ago and still staying probably last year with parents, and of two newborns.  
This part of the recording was done early in a day at sunrise (May) when older beavers just returned after a night to youngsters (still drinking milk from their mother). Adults can be heard eating branches dragged inside the lodge. There are probably two youngsters there listening to the voices. They will soon start exploring the world with their family.

Beaver youngsters together with their family

30 May 2023

To get good recordings of birds you have to come close. On way of achieving this is to work with concealed microphones. It’s not easy to predict where the target bird/s will be, and I regularly fail in my attempts, but occasionally I succeed. I scouted a semi-open sandy area – a former tree seed orchard –  where I had encountered lekking Black Grouse last year, and hid a small stereo lavalier microphone overnight in the crown of an isolated small pine tree. One by one the Black Grouse males arrived in the late evening hours and immediately began displaying around the small pine tree.  

Umeå commune, Västerbotten County (63.39 N, 19.54 E)

Primo-EM172s

01_01.05

In the middle of the Black Grouse lekk

The rainy season arrived on time at our home in urban Miami this June, splattering off the roof onto the driveway, distant thunder rumbling around, and the overburdened rain gutters straining under the load.

Recorded with Sound Devices MixPre 3 mixer/recorder with Audio Technica AT4025 X/Y stereo microphone.

Rainy Season Begins

Listening to traffic pass a Miami urban street corner, a jetliner flies overhead and a fire engine screeches past, an early experiment with binaural recording in urban Miami, Florida. June 2018. Luhd PM-01 Binaural Microphones placed in ears and Sound Devices Mix-Pre 3 recorder.

Urban Siren

A far off night train whistles across a suburban pond as leopard frogs wake, their croaks overcoming the quiet evening in Mount Dora, Florida, December 2018. Recorded in XY stereo with Audio Technica BP4025 and Sound Devices MixPre3.

Night Train & Small Town Frogs

A heavy rain falls on a barn deep in the Ocala National Forest, playing  different notes: the tin roof far above, splatting on cement floor, hitting wooden walls and plunking off a metal gutter. Recorded in Fort McCoy, Florida, December 2018. Wide stereo field recorded in NOS with pair of Line Audio CM3 cardioid microphones feeding a Sound Devices MixPre 3 recorder.

Rain On A Tin Roof

I spent the night of July 14, 2019, camped near Thirtymile Meadows in the Okanogan National Forest at 6400 ft (1950 m). The area is known as the Okanogan High Country, and for a good reason. Tall, sharp mountains standing on an already high, mostly dry plateau make it a unique place in the Pacific Northwest.

The shallow-bowl shaped meadows made for a beautiful natural amphitheater for recording. Quiet little burble and occasional ripple sound from the boggy ground beneath. With a shockingly low noise floor for an open-air recording space and reverberation that seemed to go on forever (RT60 of over 5.5 seconds), it was just a stage waiting for a performer. Luckily one came along.

A lone coyote entered the meadow from the distant right and vocalized for nearly 50 minutes before trailing away. For those unaware, coyotes are extremely vocal animals. They're not the quiet loners wolves can be. They often bark, yip, howl, and more for long periods as they make their rounds of their territory. When it's just you and the coyote, though, it's hard not to feel that she's making the racket as a special performance just for you.

It's quiet moments like these that I find so rewarding as a recordist.

This track is unmastered, just decoded to a stereo image.

For the technically nosy:
Microphones: Double Mid-Side of MKH8040/MKH30/MKH8040
Stereo Matrix: Harpex-X
Recorder: MixPre 6

Lone Coyote at Thirtymile Meadows

This lively dawn chorus was recorded in a small pothole coulee in Eastern Washington, one of the numerous Seep Lakes of the Channeled Scablands.
This is the Columbia Plateau, a large basalt flow cut through by the Columbia River. During the last ice age, 10-20 thousand years ago, the ice dam blocking Glacial Lake Missoula collapsed, unleashing one of the largest known ancient mega-floods. This flood, and dozens of smaller floods swept through Washington to the Columbia River. It washed the topsoil off much of the plateau, ripping out chunks of basalt and eroding great channels we call coulees. The best known of these is the Grand Coulee, known both for its size and for the dam that filled it with water. Early white settlers in the area called this land "scablands" because nothing could grow on it.
In the 1900s the Columbia Basin Project, the largest water reclamation project in the US, saw the creation of a network of dams and reservoirs including the Grand Coulee. Responsible for the upheaval and forced relocation of thousands of indigenous peoples, eliminating their access to the migratory Salmon their lives relied upon, decimated fish stocks above the dams, and rendering numerous towns and settlements uninhabitable, the CBP worthy of a longer history lesson another day. The expansion of agriculture production has been proven beneficial, turning North Central Washington into one of the largest and most productive tree fruit producing areas on the planet.
One unintended consequence that is either beneficial or disastrous depending your outlook has been the hydrological seepage from the reservoirs into the many downstream coulees and potholes, resulting in the creation of hundreds of lakes of varying sizes. These brand new wetland ecosystems quickly became popular with migratory and resident wetland birds who now call them home. They are also regularly stocked and prove popular fishing destinations.
The pothole coulee this recording is from is one of those new wetlands.
One final history/ ecological history lesson: the American Bullfrog is indigenous to the eastern portion of North America. It's historical range just barely reached what is now the Oklahoma. During the Gold Rush period of the 1800s they were imported to the West to meet the "sophisticated tastes" of wealthy East Coasters. Frog farms were set up throughout California, Oregon, and Washington to meet demand. When demand died and the farms closed, farmers released their stock in wetlands, creating one of the most voracious invasive pests in the West. Read more about it here: https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2004/aug/15/bad-news-bullfrogs/
I have mixed feelings when I hear bullfrogs in the soundscape. They're an invasive, dangerous pest. But can we, WILL we be able to restrain them back to their original  range? It's doubtful. Just as Pigeons, European Starlings, Chukar, and Pheasants among other species have become an indelible part of our wild spaces, should bullfrogs just be accepted? I'm mixed. I love the sound of a bullfrog chorus. It's pretty spectacular. It's also a sign of a wetland zone. If I hear bullfrogs, I go looking.
So to the recording…
This is a true Dawn chorus. Tt captures the entire Dawn, from First Light, 4:33 AM, through Sunrise, 5:03 AM.
There are three dominant voices here: Coulee crickets (I'm not making this up: Anabrus longipes), Yellow-headed Blackbirds, which, if I had to pick, would be my single favorite bird, and the Bullfrogs. Listen to the crickets, thick and lush in the twilight, slowly drop off and become a sparser presence towards the end. In a few hours they'll stop singing during the period the sun is highest.
You'll also hear of Canyon Wrens, with their mournful drooping, Red-winged Blackbirds, Common Nighthawks, Tree Swallows, and a distant Rock Wren.
Click through the comments  and markers in the soundcloud track for callouts of some of the various voices.

At Northwest Soundscapes:
http://soundeziner.com/2020/06/coulee-dawn/

Coulee Dawn, 2020-06-20

Night time crickets accompany slowing flowing water as it nourishes the “River Of Grass” in Everglades National Park, Florida. The miles wide shallow sheet of water flows about 200 miles from it’s source in central Florida to it’s exit into the sea. January 2021. Two cross faded clips were recorded in AB Stereo with matched pair of Ursi Pro omnidirectional microphones placed about six feet apart and six feet in the air, recorded into SoundDevices MixPre 3 with -40 Hz low cut and 50 Db of gain.

River Of Crickets

I'm a Miami location sound recordist who will capture terrific tracks for your interview, commercial, documentary, reality show or news program. With more than 30 years telling compelling national and global stories, I’m a complete team member with a keen eye for production and a sharp ear for powerful sound.

And as a field recordist - working independently of a film crew - I’ve captured the subtle sounds of the natural world from a kayak, a manhood dance in Ethiopia and the action-packed soundscapes of China.

Rain On A Tin Roof

Miami Sound Recordist

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