We went for a walk at Holme Fen yesterday and there was a sound coming from a reed bed I’d not heard before. Loud, bright and ecstatic – a bit like a female cuckoo, but they won’t arrive for another month or so.
Turns out it was a Little Grebe. The thought of recording it got me out of bed to drive there at 4.30 this morning. Here’s a rough edit, with the video picture showing my parabolic microphone balanced on a fallen birch tree.
There are a couple of grey heron calls early on, Canada geese and whooper swans, then the grebe itself calls at 18 and 54 seconds, and again at 1.12. What an amazing sound for such a tiny, shy bird!
Leave a Reply