Grey Shrike-thrush protesting at the intrusion of a Spangled Drongo into its territory. Recorded in Casuarina glauca forest at Wallis Lake, New South Wales.

Get Out Of My Space.WAV

Lift off! This was spectacular beyond what I could have imagined. The starling murmuration at the Avalon Marshes in Somerset. Hundreds of thousands of birds departing from their roost on the reed beds. The numbers are hard to comprehend. First the silence - a timid chorus at this time of year - then the starlings start to chatter. Suddenly there is a build up of rumbling bass, like wind hitting the microphone or something about to erupt. Then the waves across the field, like ocean waves in the distance, both visually and sonically. And the lift off. The rumble becomes a satisfying silky carpet enveloping you overhead.

This repeats 3-4 times as different waves of departing starlings take flight. MAGICAL.

I edited 30 seconds at the end from when they've all left, to give perspective, so you can appreciate the decibels such a gathering produces.

Location: Shadwick Heath, Somerset, UK
Date and time: 25 February 2024, 7am
Habitat: Reed beds, Flooded plains

Gear (Associate Links):
Sound Devices 744T
Sennheiser MKH8060 and MKH30 in Mid-Side rig.
Nikon Z6-II https://amzn.to/4aWjeyZ
Sigma 24-70mm F2.8 DG OS HSM https://amzn.to/4bmU24t
Sigma 70-200 F2.8 https://amzn.to/3Wpdrxu

Starling Murmuration Dawn Lift-Off

Red Deer Cervus elaphus

A documentary of my personal mission to record a nightingale singing in the woodland just behind my parents house in Kent, from first hearing it to getting the clean recording I wanted.

In Pursuit Of The Nightingale

37 minutes of uninterrupted nightingale song, the same bird that I discovered in "In Pursuit of the Nightingale". Primo EM172 capsule in a parabolic reflector, Sound Devices MixPre 6.

A Nightingale in Lockdown

Wildlife Sound Recording Society - founded in 1968 - dedicated to wildlife sound, animal communication and bioacoustics.

Join us! https://www.wildlife-sound.org/membership/join-wsrs

Red Deer Cervus elaphus

Wildlife Sound Recording Society

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