Hi All,
Just wanted to share a small portion of a recording I made over the
weekend at Clarkesdale Bird Sanctuary, near Linton (40 km SW of
Ballarat, and roughly 120km west of Melbourne, Victoria).
The Australian Wildlife Sound Recording Group had arranged the weekend
as an informal get together of Victorian members, and as an excuse to
gather enough members to reach a quorum for their annual general
meeting. In all 6 local recordists and various partners attentended.
I'd only met one member previously - Howard Plowright (best know for his
work editing and compiling the Bird Observers Club of Australia 10 CD
field guide to Australian Bird Song), so it was wonderful to have the
opportunity to meet some of the "names" behind recordings I've heard on
the cd which accompanies the groups journal. (As an aside the AWSRG CD
is edited and compiled by Nature-Recordist denizen Viki Powys who does a
fantastic job preparing 2 CD's of members recordings a year).
Over the course of the weekend several members made presentations on
their work - Fred Van Gessel (AWSRG president and NSW interloper) on the
bird song of Iron Range in Far North Queensland, Andrew Skeoch on his
recording experiences in Thailand plus a short discussion of the complex
tapestry of "niches" occupied by individual species in the soundscape of
his local dawn chorus, and Michael Gallagher presented his observations
on the communication function of the "tseee" call of European Blackbird.
Anyway, my "audio postcard" from the weekend is this segement of a
recording of the dawn chorus made in an area of the sanctuary called the
Bird Paddock. It had rained heavily the previous evening so everything
was quite damp, and the air was still. The gear used was an Oade modded
Tascam HDP2, and a pair of AT3032 mounted on a head-spaced boundary
array. Some of the more obvious calls are Pallid Cuckoo, Eastern Yellow
Robin, Long Billed Corella, Crimson Rosella and Grey Shrike Thrush.
http://www.urbanbirder.com.au/node/85
cheers
Paul
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