Those were great, Tom. And I appreciate your commentary on the "what-
was-going-on".
----------------------
Suzanne
Suzanne Williams Photography
http://web.tampabay.rr.com/swilli41/www
Florida, USA
--- In "tk7859" <> wrote:
>
>
>
> Well, Sunday morning was quiet; it being in the middle of the three
> day "Mayday" public holiday and the time was 4AM. The
>
> weather could have been better but it was dry and cloudy. The wind
> was 12/14mph which gave a few problems with wind noise in
>
> the trees, occasional buffetting of the mics and the operation of a
> neighbour's bamboo wind chimes (which can be heard at
>
> various times in the following snippets - not to be confused with a
> distant cuckoo, but very similar at times).
>
> The recording equipment was a Sony NH1 minidisc recorder set to
PCM,
> mic high sens., manual reord vol set to 26 for the
>
> first snippet and 23 for the others. Two Rode NT1As angled at
> 60degrees and 7 inches apart were used.
>
> I filled a 1 gig minidisc (1 hour 34 minutes) starting at 4:05 am
> local time (GMT + 1hour).
>
> I thought it might be interesting to attach a few snippets from the
> hour and a half recording to give an idea of how the dawn
>
> chorus progressed. Other than adding a fade in and fade out to each
> item (and converting to MP3) the rcordings are as
>
> downloaded from the NH1.
>
> First a couple of minutes right at the start of recording at
4:05AM.
> Other than wind noise things are pretty quiet other
>
> than the plaintive sounds of some of the birds on the estuary. These
> chaps seem happy singing all night. Now the geese have
>
> gone back to Siberia they have the stage to thenselves; other than
the
> occasional duck and early riser garden bird.
>
> http://ad2004.hku.nl/naturesound/TomR/IDCD/IDCD1mp3.mp3
>
> By 4:21AM some of the other guys in the garden have woken up and are
> starting to do their bit. Bit of wind buffeting here
>
> http://ad2004.hku.nl/naturesound/TomR/IDCD/IDCD2mp3.mp3
>
> Things are going along with a swing by 4:29, even a distant cuckoo
> gets the urge (he has been around for 10 days now but is
>
> keeping his distance - mic shy?).
>
> http://ad2004.hku.nl/naturesound/TomR/IDCD/IDCD3mp3.mp3
>
> Things reach a peak at 4:39. Someone must have let the airlines
know
> because the first "big bird" of the day arrives from
>
> Australia or somewhere else in the far East en route for opening
time
> at the London airports.
>
> http://ad2004.hku.nl/naturesound/TomR/IDCD/IDCD4Amp3.mp3
>
> Finally things settle down and the big hitters (sound wise) get into
> their groove at 5:28
>
> http://ad2004.hku.nl/naturesound/TomR/IDCD/IDCD5mp3.mp3
>
> To put things into perspective it was dark at the start of recording
> and by the time I finished (5:45) it was quite light and
>
> blackbirds and thrushes could be seen foraging. Sunrise was at
5:20.
>
> I wish I was better equipped to identify bird song. It would have
> been good to recite which bird was singing when!
>
> So, that was my contribution to "International Dawn Chorus Day". I
> hope it was worthwhile you reading this far.
>
> Cheers
>
> Tom Robinson
>
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