Nature
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Stowford Nature
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Wildlife Recordings |
Testing two very different mic rigs with a simultanous recording |
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Rig 1 |
Rig 2 |
Testing the stereo image of the two rigs by shaking peanuts. |
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Rig 1 |
Rig 2 |
| The above tests were comparing an experimental mic rig with one I had been using for some time. They produce different sounds and I would like comments good or bad on the recordings. The setup is as in the photo below in "Hen Pheasant Subsong" looking at my garden which has many mature trees. The background sounds are more distant birds, wind, and country atmosphere. I test the stereo images by walking past in a straight line shaking a canister of peanuts. The double shake is approximately at the mid point. I start approximately 15 metres (yards) to one side and pass at about 3 metres. The stereo object width is obviously different. Both runs were recorded simultaneously. |
The last dawn chorus in May 2011 |
Before sunrise at half past four and after rain in the night there are still some drips. The sun will be up in half an hour but the birds are up now. I'm tucked up in bed at the other end of 100 metre cables. The mics are pointed towards the side of the garden facing a steep shrub bank which has become overgrown with forsythia which make good nesting sites including goldcrest nests.
The garden has 14 mature trees in it. The big tree to the left is a 45 metre (150 foot) eucalyptus and you can just see the cottage roof through the tree on the right.
The lead singer is a robin, with backing from two rival blackbirds, Intel, who uses that annoying jingle and Squeak who often ends his phrases in a high pitch. In the far distance is the third local blackbird Titiboo who calls that twice at the start of a phrase. Squeak learned to copy him but he titiboos at the end of a phrase. At the moment, Titiboo has been relegated to the woodland where Intel used to be. Hear him in
"A Spring evening on Badger Hill".
Recorded on an experimental rig into the XLR's on a Tascam DR-100. |
Gentle April Dawn Chorus in Pig Wood |
| April has had some very noisy dawn choruses and I turned my stereo pair of mics away from the main centres of action deep in Pig Wood to see what else was going on and also to try to track down where an elusive woodpecker was drumming. This little passage hardly needed topping and tailing as it was a burst of activity after the main shouting had died down. Some birds, including the two rival blackbirds, were behind the mics and don't form a clear stereo image but for once they don't dominate the scene. The woodpecker was far down in Pig Wood and this was about 50 metres from the top of Pig Wood, hence the reverberation on the singing. Recorded on a pair of MHK-416 mics at the end of 150 metre cables in a tent to keep them weatherproof looking out of the insect screen and through an SQN to a Tascam DR-1. |
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Gentle April Dawn Chorus Slowed Down |
| We miss so much in a bird call because it is too fast for us to follow. I like to slow some recordings down, in this case to a quarter speed, to reveal the intricacies of the call - more like what another bird would hear. |
Hen Pheasant Subsong |
I got this one morning in April. The stereo mics were set pointing at my garden for the dawn chorus and when it quietened down, along came this hen pheasant muttering a subsong to itself as it passed by. It wandered to the back of the mics then wandered off to come back half a minute later and mooch past the mics once more.
The cock pheasant was a surprise but was ignored by the hen. The last of the dawn chorus can be heard in the background.
The photo shows the mic tent at the back of the garden - more like an arboretum - next to my vegetable and fruit plot. The hen pheasant walked up the grass right in front of the tent and also went behind it.
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| Recorded on a pair of MHK-416 mics in the tent to keep them weatherproof looking out of the insect screen and through an SQN mixer to a Tascam DR-1. |
April Dawn Chorus in Pig Wood |
| Pig Wood is my small Nature Reserve which is listed as a County Wildlife Site for botany. It's quite full of avian life as well as you can hear in this excerpt from the dawn chorus which goes on for over an hour. The predominant background sound is the steep tumbling stream which runs the length of the wood roughly in line with the middle of this pic in a deep rocky V. |
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| Recorded on a non-matching pair of mics which match surprisingly well. They are Sennheisers, an MKH-815 and an MKH-816 on 150 metre cables in a tent for weather protection looking out of the insect screen and recorded directly into a Tascam DR-100. |
A Bee, Sheep, and two Alarmed Birds |
| I don't know what caused the alarm and it wasn't the neighbour's sheep, but the two birds weren't happy with one exiting right past the mics. Recorded on a pair of MKH-416 mics in Rycote windgags at 60° in a tent for weather protection, on long cables to an SQN mixer into a Tascam DR-1. |
A Spring evening on Badger Hill with a blackbird and company |
| I'm told that the "honk honk" bird is a raven, but it doesn't hang out with the other ravens which don't seem to like it. There are two of them in the valley and they don't make any other sounds, The pheasant is making both lots of wing noise, and the raven circles and departs while the blackbird sings on. Meanwhile, blackbird "Intel" demonstrates how he got his name. Recorded on a pair of MKH-416 mics in Rycote windgags at 60° in a tent for weather protection, SQN mixer into a Tascam DR-1. |
A Windy Spring afternoon on Badger Hill with two great tits singing at each other |
| Rival great tits trying to out-sing each other as the wind gusts through the trees. Recorded on a pair of MKH-416 mics in Rycote windgags at 60° in a tent for weather protection, SQN mixer into a Tascam DR-1. |
Dusk in Pig Wood Nature Reserve. A distant barn owl, then a distant tawny, a close barn owl and pheasant. |
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I don't often see barn owls here, but it is nice to have confirmation that they are around. A very distant barn owl, then close plus a female tawny owl and a pheasant. I'm undecided whether the faint barn owl is a different bird, but the stereo placing sounds different. This recording has been fairly strongly enhanced, but the stream noise is a stream, not artifacts. Recorded on a pair of MKH-816 mics in Rycote windgags at 30° in a tent for weather protection, direct feed into a Tascam DR-100. |
Big wimp Maine Coon Cat "Orange" doesn't want to push through long grass but wants a cuddle. |
| Trying out a new recorder with a very directional mic, I hear "Orange", a cat with a pedigree as long as your arm but a total wimp calling to me from about 30 metres away. He wants me to go to him rather than to push through the long grass and demonstrates his vocabulary. The low yowl is a "come to me" call. Recorded mono on a Sennheiser MKH-816 mic originally pointed up a tree trying out a new Tascam DR-1. You can hear the separation as I lower the mic. |
Ravens and a mystery bird. |
| I've heard this mystery sound on a number of occasions in the distance and once heard two or possible three individuals making the call in distant woods. To my ear it sounds goose-like and very different from any sound I have heard ravens make. A raven replies to the first two mystery calls and then it and others get agitated and fly off. Any identifications or ideas would be appreciated. Recorded on a Sennheiser MKH-416 stereo pair on the edge of woodland. |
Audacity 1.3 Equalisation Curves. |
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Add these into the Audacity XML file called "EQCurves"
In Windows 7 this is probably in: C:\Users\Owner\AppData\Roaming\Audacity Please attribute to David Brinicombe. right click and save as: |
This work by Stowford Nature is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. |
Last updated April 2011