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The beaver ponds revisited (part 1)

Subject: The beaver ponds revisited (part 1)
From: "David Michael" corticalsongs
Date: Tue Jun 29, 2010 5:15 am ((PDT))
Hi

My best friend from when I was a kid now lives with her husband near
Clanton AL. Their property is about 17 acres and is adjacent to a
small tract of state land and commodity trees. The land slopes down a
hill for a few hundred feet, maybe half a mile, and bottoms out in
some very soggy ponds. These ponds are host to a broad array of
wildlife including a half dozen or so species of frogs and toads.

The June choruses in these ponds are pretty spectacular and I have
recorded there almost every year at the same time since 2007. This
year was the first time I was able to do an overnight recording in 4
channels. I have begun to mixdown some sections of the longer 17 hour
recording. I hope to post these with some regularity as I mixdown the
sections. For those who are setup to monitor surround sound, I have
also posted a 4 channel mix for download.

This first mix is at the water's edge of a large marshy pond close to
Message: 5am. 
Subject: The choruses of the night have largely finished. Green frogs call
occasionally with bull frogs and Eastern narrowmouth toads. Songbirds
can be heard from the surrounding wood. Crows fly overhead. A
woodpecker raps at a nearby tree.


http://soundcloud.com/dmichael/woodpeckers-at-5am

The 4 channel recording can be found here in Ogg Vorbis format.
http://scientificforestry.s3.amazonaws.com/woodpeckers-5am-take2-fade.4ch.ogg


There is a songbird toward the end of the segment that I cannot
identify. If someone on the list would be so kind as to point me in
the right direction - I have a feeling this bird is fairly common.
Additionally there is a bark of some kind at the very beginning and at
about 4:30 that is mysterious to me. Anyone know what kind of animal
this is?

For the recording, I used 2 pairs of Audio Technica AT4022 mics, both
in parallel boundary arrays with foam noses. The recorder was a Tascam
DR-680 running at 44.1kHz/24bit. I found this combination of equipment
to be about the quietest I have used thus far and am very pleased with
the performance. I did experience some humidity related noise from the
AT4022s, but only very briefly (maybe a second or two).

Enjoy
David

http://davidmichael.bandcamp.com
http://soundcloud.com/dmichael






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