Nature reserve in Flói 2012. Part 5

Last autumn and winter I published some of my recordings from 25th of June 2012 in the nature reserve at Flói in the south of Iceland.
Day after, during the night and early morning at 26th I continued to record, but now I moved the microphones about 3-5 meter closer to nearby pond.
Something happened. There was a strange echo or reverb in some directions. It sounded strange because this area is very flat. But afterwards I thought it came from a ridge about 50cm high along the pond. This echo was sometimes very nice so it is worth to continue to put this recordings from Flói on the web, maybe in 2 to 4 parts.
I skip the first two hours of this night recording, mostly because of a high noise from the surf along the coast site, 3-4 km behind the microphones and some truck traffic 7 -14 km front of the microphones.
As usual this recording are made in virtually quiet environment. It starts around 1 am and lasts for 25 minutes. It is mostly very quiet, but in the end a choir of Red throated Diver gets very loud.

Download mp3 file (35Mb / 192kbps)

Recorder: Sound devices 744T
Mics: Rode NT1a (NOS)
Pics: Canon 30D (see more pictures)
Older post from nature reserve in Flói 2012

Flatey í Breiðafirði 2012. part 1

 

Flatey is the biggest island in Breiðafjörður bay in the west of Iceland, but nevertheless a small island. It is a wonderful place. Rich, widely spiced bird life and no car traffic. Most houses are old and most of them are nicely rebuilt. No one lives there all year around but in spring, summer and autumn lot of people stays there. Sometimes the place is overcrowded with tourists but there is both a campsite and a hotel.
I spent few hours in Flatey in June 2012 with my family. We just walked around in this relaxing surroundings. The east part of the island was closed because of bird’s hatch and eyas. But the life in the “village” was also interesting.
Strong gust from vest made recording difficult but I found a quiet place beside a wall not far away from the “main street”. In front of me was a small marsh and it was overcrowded with all kinds of birds; snipe, gull, golden plover, white wagtail, oystercatcher, arctic tern, ducks and so on, but closest to the microphone is a red necked phalarope. In distance Kittiwake and other birds are audible.
I was very lucky this time, there were few tourists on the island so the recording contains relaxing conversations between neighbors in this wonderful ambience. In the beginning a child is drumming a box, but it last only for 5 minutes. After that it is possible to listen what people and birds have to say.


Download mp3 file (192kbps / 37,2Mb)
See more and listen at: www.fieldrecording.net

Recorder: Sound devices 744T
Mic: Audio Technica BP4025
Pics: Canon 30D (See more pictures)

Blackbird, Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin

 

In the beginning of February, Sonic Terrain blog introduce a funny and interesting BBC4 program. This program is inspired by the musician and Eco-philosopher David Rothenberg’s book “Why birds sing”. This documentary explores the intriguing, charming, complex and often conflicting theories on why birds sing like they do and why humans are so attracted to the sound.
After watching the program on Youtube in six pieces, I searched my recordings if some of them contained a birdsong I could be almost sure of that the bird was singing for pleasure, rather than making a territory call.
Lo and behold, I found one.
It was recorded in the evening 9th of June 2012 in my garden. This is a recording that I normally delete or do not publish because it is categorized as a “test file”.
I was testing Parabolic dish with Shure MX391/O capsules with strangely defective Sound Professionals PIP-Phantom power adapter.
But the recording does not only contains “hiss, snap and bad sound” it also contains a lovely birdsong.
Rock band was playing somewhere in the neighborhood. Suddenly a Common Blackbird with a nest in a nearby garden arrived and started to sing. First gently as he was shy but suddenly just before the band started to play Jimmy Hendrix and Janis Joplin the bird began to sing very loud a fabulous song, something I have never heard it sing before, but this bird has been around my house for some years now.
This is far from being a quality recording, but it is worth to listen.
Now the question is, what was this bird thinking when it sang this fabulous song? I am, sure it was just doing it for fun.

Download mp3 file (192kbps / 38,3Mb)
See more and listen at: www.fieldrecording.net
 
Recorder: Sound Devices 744T
Mics: Shure MX391 fit into 54cm parabolic disk, connected to SP-XLRM-MINI-2-PHANTOM
Pics. Nokia N82

Black legged Kittiwake at Arnarstapi

In middle of July my family went in a five days trip around Snæfellsnes peninsula. Of course my recorder follow me as a puppy and I recorded as much as I could days and nights. One of this recordings I made was above a cliff score near Arnarstapi.
The weather was very nice, sunny but a breeze from north-vest so it was calm in the cliffs south of Arnarstapi.
I expanded my boom over the cliff brink and located the microphone in a calm place.
And…. WOW! I got really beautiful ambiance. About 15-20 meters below, the sea wave smoothly stroke the cliffs. Whine black legged Kittiwake flew all around and the cliffs were full of the their tweedy baby’s.
During one hour recording I was totally raped on the cliff edge in this beautiful ambiance.
Close by in next score,  fishermens were working at the dock and some tourist walked by behind me.




Download mp3 file (192kbps / 45Mb)
See more and listen at: www.fieldrecording.net

Recorder: Sound devices 744
Mic: Audio Technica  BP4025
Pix: Canon 30D

Nature reserve in Flói 2012. Part 3

Recordings from Flói nature reserve continues. This two recordings were captured around 3:30 and 4:00 am, 25th of June.
The first recording contains mostly far distance sounds, a quiet relaxing midsummer sound scape. Birds are living their life, flying around and searching for food. Gusts sometimes disturb the recording with rumble sound .
The second recording was recorded around 4 am. It contains the first of many jet flights this morning from Europe to America. Morning sunbeams are now really going to heat the field so clouds of gnats are even thicker than before. A duck with youngsters are pushing their body through rushy field searching for food around the microphone.
Both this recordings are worth to played as a background sound at home or work.

3:30am
Download mp3 file (192kbps / 32Mb)

4:00am
Download mp3 file (192kbps / 31,2Mb)

Recorder: Sound devices 744
Mics: Rode NT1a (NOS setup)
Pix: Canon 30D (See more pictures)
Listen to other parts of  “nature reserve in Flói 2012“

See more and listen at: www.fieldrecording.net

Nature reserve in Flói 2012. Part2

This recording is almost a straight continue from “Nature reserve in Flói 2012 – Part 1” that was recorded inside the bird watching shelter. Now the microphones are in the wetland, about 300 meters from the shelter. This is close to a pond, early morning 25th of June, around 3am. Now and then the gust strokes the field, but later one it gets more quiet.
This was a busy time for all residents in the area so the recording contains a lot of their activity.
Birds searching for food in the pound or in the grass around the microphones, like Red- necked Phalarope, Arctic stern, Red throat Loon and some ducks. Birds pass by with wing flaps. There is also a lonely barking dog, bleating sheep and whinny horses somewhere far away.
When morning sunbeams warm the field and the wind goes calm, billions of gnats start to fly in thick clouds up and down with impressive noise. Many other bird species are audible in this recording like Common Snipe, Golden Ploer, Whimbrel, Gull, Rooster and many other birds I can not named like some young birds. Sometimes young Loon are crying, while other birds sounds like Tod (n.b. no Frogs live in Iceland).
This is a very quiet nature recording so you should not play it loud. You should play it like you think you will hear it trough open window, as a background sound. Best way to listen details and explore all bird species is using quality open headphones This recording contain also very loud session when all Loons in all ponds in the area “scream” a territory call.
Surprisingly it looks like only one or two motorist is audible in this recording, a truck about 20 km away So the soundscape is almost as nice as it gets on our planet.
There is still many hours left of this recording in Flói. It will be published in coming months.

Download mp3 file (192kbps / 40,3Mb)
See more and listen at: www.fieldrecording.net

Recorder: Sound Devices 744T
Mics: Rode NT1a (NOS setup)
Pix: Canon EOS30D (see more pictures)

Opus for power line, bass, wind and birds.

It is not every day when I am free from traffic noise. But when it happens it is possible to notice other small sounds in the surroundings. That happened in beginning of June 2012 when I was at Krossholt at Barðastönd, in the northwest of Iceland. One night someone was playing loud music in the neighborhood. The rumbling bass beat was noticeable all night along. During the night the wind started to blow from east with strong gusts. Suddenly nearby power line started to give a strange sound and the niggling beat from the neighborhood started to be interesting. In combination with the wind, power line, birdsong from the field and nearby cliff it started to be like a music from other planet. In fact it was a really interesting composition. Better than many modern human made compositions today. The intro is more than two minutes long, so just lay back in your chair, relax and listen. High quality headphones are recommended.

Download mp3 file (192kbps / 34,7Mb)
See more and listen at: www.fieldrecording.net

Recorder: Sound Devices 744 (24bit/48Khz)
Mics: Rode NT1a. NOS setup.
Pix: Canon 30D
Interesting link: Wired Lab

White Wagtail in the wind

I and my family spent a bank holiday last weekend in May in Union´s vacation house at Apavatn in south Iceland. The weather was typical for spring. Sunny, but cold and windy.
This was not exactly the best weather to record bird song, or “nice spring mood”, but when I placed the microphones not far away from the house, a White Wagtail gave me a nice tweet as a professional singer close to the microphones.
Not far away was a playground with big trampoline. Most of the background sound is the drumming sound from this trampoline, screaming children and waves from the lake. Through the all recording a weak tweet sound is coming from young bird in nearby nest.
In the end of the recording people are gathering together in a hot tub.

Download mp3 file (192kbps / 24,6mb)
See more and listen at: www.fieldrecording.net      

Recorder: Sound devices 744
Mic: Rode NT2a in spaced omni (60cm AB setup )
Pix: Canon 30D (see more picture)