While I missed the most of todays Sunny dry weather fixing my shed, I did manage to get out in the evening just before it hammered down with rain yet again. During this time, many birds were singing so I left the Camera at home and spent some time listening to the landscape through a parabolic dish. If you've never had the chance to use a parabola before, you're more than happy to try mine. It's an amazing experience to have 'super ears' that amplifies sounds you never new were even there. It extends your reach meaning you can find individual species much quicker when they are audible. If you remember in my previous blogs I mentioned trying to get a recording of the Great Spotted Woodpeckers drumming and i'm happy to say that I succeeded in getting some recordings of that today. Took a while to find out what branches they were preferring to drum on and took even longer for them to drum with me standing under the tree. Eventually however, they did come around to me and I got this:
After spending time with the Woodpeckers, night was drawing in and with it the evening Chorus began which was surprisingly full for this time of year! I heard Goldcrest, Treecreeper, Nuthatch, Bluetit, Coal Tit, Chaffinch, Blackbird, Dunnock, Robin, Marsh Tit, and finally Song Thrush! one of my all time personal favourites. Below isn't the best recording for their classic mimicry but it was the most clear recording I could get as most of my other recordings had planes flying overhead.. I don't think people realise just how much sound pollution there is.. Put my headphones on with my Telinga Microphone and you'll realise just how noisy we really are on this planet.