Just listening on a Altec Lansing desktop pair with a sub under the desk, but there is a wonderfully spacious ambience to the sound. I should try to figure out how to get it bedside. Thanks.

During a severe wind storm, I revisited the yellow popular from this winter storm recording: https://soundcloud.com/acousticnature/tree-creaks-inside-an-oak

This time, I stuck a pair of EM272 microphones inside the tree cavity instead of putting my SASS in front of the opening. I mainly did this to protect the mics from the heavy rains that came during the night. 

I was really amazed at how well the tree insulated the mics from the outer world's sounds. Even the torrential downpour we received sounded like a gentle drizzle. 

When I popped the SD card into my computer the next morning, I was surprised that the popular made less noise than the previous recording, despite the increased wind speeds. 

I think this may have been due to 2 things: the warmer weather and deeper cracking along the the main trunk. I believe both these factors gave the tree more "wiggle-room" and caused less direct rubbing.

This recording is a compilation of 27 interesting clips throughout the night ranging in length from 3-111 seconds. 

Thanks for reading and listening ♫

Tree Creaks Compilation | 50mph Gusts

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

Full Album: https://acousticnature.bandcamp.com/album/hammersley-wild-area

Blog Post: https://acousticnature.com/journal/recording-nature-sounds-hammersley-wild-area-pennsylvania 

This is a demo of my latest field recording trip to the Hammersley Wild Area in Pennsylvania. The full album consists of 12 tracks totaling 1 hour of pure nature sounds.

The album is available on BandCamp (see above link) for “name your price” and is intended for personal listening use only. 

If you’d like to license any of my recordings, please email me at Jared@AcousticNature.com

Thanks for listening!

DEMO: Hammersley Wild Area, PA | Personal Listening Album on BandCamp

Haunting Red Deer rutting in the forest of Orléans

On the shore of the Lac du Der at night, a talkative Red fox meets a pack of responsive Common cranes.

Recorded with Mélia Roger on November 5th 2022 around 9:30pm.

Lom Usi Pro AB in PCM M10
Drop rig excerpt.

Illustration : Grues trompettant, Robert Hainard

Cranes and Fox dialogue - Mélia Roger & Grégoire Chauvot

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

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

A male European nightjar delivers his strange motor like song from one of his favorite song post before moving to the next one, ending his trill by a joyful wing clap.

Lyon countryside, late spring.
2023-06-10, 22h

Lom Usi Pro, Sony PCM M10

Recorded by Grégoire Chauvot & Mélia Roger

Illustration : John Gerrard Keulemans, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

European nightjar, Song and wing clap - Mélia Roger & Grégoire Chauvot

A few weeks ago Lucia and I made our first trip since having our baby. We made the trip in preparation for another trip to figure out how to travel. The trip needed to be multi-day and high in elevation to help baby be better prepared for his first airplane trip. We decided on Yosemite Valley. With a newborn hardly two months old would we be able to explore or create like we normally would? It was a different pace than our typical trips to be sure, but still awesome!

Something we don't often experience where we live is thunderstorms and finally for the first time I had an opportunity to record one! I used my SASS/Olson-ish microphone which uses four EM272 capsules. The EM272 doesn't have the largest SPL handling so I wasn't sure if the thunder would overload them or not. I was pleasantly surprised that in combination with the MixPre 3II 32-bit recording none of the thunder clipped! I put the microphone under a fallen tree in hopes the rain wouldn't hit it.

Processing this recording was a challenge. Thunder is LOUD. Many of the strikes were 40-60dB louder than the rest of the environment! Since I like to listen to my recordings while working I wanted to process the recording so I wouldn't need to change the volume constantly for fear of bleeding ears. I used a variety of techniques from removing the thunder with splicing and then overlaying the thunder with reduced volume. When the rain (and hail) was more intense I found this didn't work well so I instead relied on more targeted spectral editing. For both techniques I utilized iZotope's Ozone Maximizer to help keep the impact of the thunder while still reducing the volume to a listenable range.

I have a sneaking suspicion that I'll try reprocessing this at some point, but for now I'm proud of my first attempt. Hope you enjoy!

Some technical details about the recording:
- Recording Date: 2023.06.10
- Location: Foresta, CA (in Yosemite Valley)
- Audio Interface: Sound Devices MixPre3-II
- Rate, Depth: 96kHz, 32-bit float
- Gain: 65bB
- Microphone: Stereo "SASS" Dual EM272 per Channel

Afternoon Thunderstorm across Yosemite Valley

Insects and frogs call throughout the night in the cloud forest near a small stream, and some wind gusts pass through the canopy, shaking rain drops down.  The rain was light and falling through the foliage.  I recorded this with a Double Mid-side system.

Costa Rica Cloud Forest Night Chorus Near Small Stream with Gentle Rain and Wind

Please get in touch if you want to use my sounds for something!  I make custom libraries, and can license specific sounds.  Field recording, acoustic monitoring and research, studio recording, sound effects production, bird identification, audio post-production services.  Specialized in sound library editing and review, and wilderness field recording.

For updates on my sound libraries available for licensing visit ebbtidesound.com

Costa Rica Cloud Forest Night Chorus Near Small Stream with Gentle Rain and Wind

Laura Giannone- Ebbtide Sound

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