I'm going to add a few recordings as I make them during 2010 -
17 July, 9.30pm - I was thrilled to hear these two blackbirds singing close together, and a third not too far away, just as dusk was falling in Southwick Forest.......blackbirds
17 May - A lovely few moments just as the evening chorus finishes. With a cuckoo in the distance, the nightingale gradually quietens and moves away a little. Its final burst of song has a lovely liquid quality, quite different from what went before.
16 May - Southwick forest - a nightingale deep in the wood at around 11pm, with tawny owls in the pines behind
16 May - An extraordinary call from the same nightingale
This is an informal diary of birdsong, including nightingales, recorded during 2009 in the Oundle area in Northamptonshire, UK. The latest post is at the top - scroll down to see previous posts
2.00 - 3.00am slight breeze
I arrived and set up in the dark, just catching the end of some wonderful wobbly owl calls accompanying a solo nightingale, with a muntjac barking deeper into the wood.
The same nightingale kept on singing with a lovely relaxed rhythm.
As the first signs of dawn were showing in the sky I moved up to Southwick forest and recorded a nightingale in the scrub with chiffchaffs, blackbirds, and many others.
Moving further into the pines the birdsong became less interesting, but I'm never quite prepared for the extraordinary beauty of the dawn light as it filters through the trees at a low angle. I was glad I had the camera - the image on the right says it all for me.
11.00 am - noon very warm
A rare chance to record a nightingale during the day. This is one of three or four which have been singing regularly in the wood this year.
A blackcap sings close by.
10.00 pm - 11.45 pm very still
A gorgeous sunset on the way up to the forest, a hushed wait as darkness fell, then at 11.00 a solo nightingale burst into song.
I left the recorder running and walked for half a mile in each direction, but couldn't hear an answering singer. As I left at 11.45 he looked set to sing the whole night through.
3.00 AM - 7.00 AM very still
After a long windy period - a calm morning at last. As dawn was breaking I recorded this nightingale up close - there are answering calls from a distance.
Further into the forest I recorded a wash of woodpigeons, wrens, and blackbirds looking into an open area of conifers. I'm a bit foxed by the repeated chicken-like call. Perhaps it really is a domestic fowl.
I love this mix of song and calls based around a chiffchaff. By now the dawn chorus was easing off a little in its intensity.
This short clip with a wren rattling away at full volume is joined near the end by the quiet purring sounds of a turtle dove.
It was a magical morning, although the birds were competing with an all-night rave somewhere towards Bulwick!
10 May 2009 - Glapthorn Cow Pastures
4.00 - 5.00 AM very still
The first calm morning after a week of winds. Two nightingales were duelling before dawn, trading phrases and cutting across each other. Their intensity grows as other birds start to join the dawn chorus.
I heard this blackbird at the entrance to the wood, sounding lovely against the surrounding blackcaps.
I moved on to Southwick Forest, and finally recorded the cuckoo that has been leading me a merry dance for the last couple of weeks.
4 May 2009 - Glapthorn Cow Pastures
2.00 - 3.00 AM very still
I got back at 2.00am from taking my son to a music festival in Leeds, and went to Glapthorn before going to bed.
Two nightingales were singing beautifully on the lower ride.
This is my favourite recording of the year so far......
5.00 AM - 9.00 AM zero degrees, very still
It was very cold, but I made some wonderfully atmospheric and unusual recordings in the complete absence of man- made sounds.
Click on the links below to hear them....
There were two nightingales singing in the scrub near the forest entrance just after dawn, but I was surprised by the low, fruity call that interrupted the nearest about 15 seconds into this short clip. Was it another nightingale, or something else? It sounds like a curlew, but I've never heard one locally before, or could it be the first part of a green woodpecker's call? (thanks to Geoff Sample who identified this as a female cuckoo call 5/5/09).
Moving further into the forest, I heard this greater spotted woodpecker drumming against the choral cooing of scores of woodpigeons.
My favourite listening spot is on the edge of some mixed conifer and deciduous woods next to open farmland, That's where I got this ambient recording, full of depth and natural reverberation. The closest bird is a wren; pheasants, crows and willow warblers are somewhere in the middle; and woodpigeons make up a soundwash in the distance. After about 60 seconds a mistle thrush adds his distinctive piping song to the soundscape.
I came across a grasshopper warbler flitting about in the open. Here his call is more intermittent than at dusk, when it can easily be mistaken for an insect.
I went back in the evening to chase an elusive cuckoo - he still refuses to sing for long enough to start recording - but heard this long-eared owl just after dark. His spaced out hoots came from deep in the conifers. Hopefully there will soon be some chicks, which sound like a persistent squeaky gate....
sunrise shadows of me and my parabolic mic
7 - 9.00pm warm and still
Nightingales were now singing in competition on the lower ride. There were two, possibly three, singing and calling in bursts of about 15 minutes with long gaps in between.
The second singer had a much sweeter tone, and moved around more, switching to the other side of the ride at one point. As dusk fell the first was left growling and wheeting quietly in his original thicket.
click on the links above to hear the birdsong...
5.00 - 6.00 AM cold and still
I arrived before the main dawn chorus had started, and a nightingale was singing alone in the dark. He was in the same spot as before, and the power and range of song had greatly increased.
As the dawn chorus started I moved further up the wood and recorded from the same spot as on the 12th. Blackbirds are much more dominant in the overall sound picture, and the tone is softening as the leaves begin to come out...
click on the links above to hear the birdsong...
7.00 - 7.30pm warm with a gentle wind
They've arrived!
There was a report of three nightingales singing at Glapthorn around midday, but I only heard one during the afternoon and evening. There was another singing from dense scrub in Southwick forest.
The Glapthorn nightingale was a little subdued, and not yet up to full volume and virtuosity. But many of the elements of the song are there, and it's lovely to hear it again. He was singing to the right of the bottom ride, tantalisingly close but still invisible in the thorn thicket.
To hear him click here
