The sounds of
mybitoftheplanet
Introduction
At the beginning of 2006 I decided to make a
small step towards catching up with sound technology by getting a Sony
Minidisc recorder (yes, I know that they have been around since 1992).
Subsequently I bought a second-hand Vivitar TVM-1 telescopic microphone
which I used to capture some of the natural sounds to be heard in, or
from the garden.
In 2013 I switched to using a Sony PCM-M10 Linear PCM
recorder which allows me to record high quality audio onto micro-sd cards
using a choice of formats. Along with that recorder I now have several small
Sony ECM-55 and a very small Sony ECM-77 microphone for close-up recordings.
The Vivitar mike has been replaced by a Sennheiser MKE 300 for long range
recordings, and I'm experimenting with some old Piezo earphones as contact
microphones (listen to the solitary wasp recording below).
As the visit of the BBC crew in showed, between
the almost constant background of road traffic and the frequent sounds of
aircraft, getting decent recordings in the garden is going to be something
of a challenge, so recordings that find their way onto this page may be
replaced at a later date, should I succeed in getting a better quality
version.
The sound files are in MP3 format, and have usually had a
high-pass filter applied to remove some of the traffic noise that is always
in the backround.
The Sounds
 The Starling - Perhaps the
most complex singers in our garden, the Starlings' vocal contributions often
amuse us. This recording was made on 25 March 2007, using a microphone
inside a nestbox at the side of our house. For the first ten seconds the
Starling had it head outside the box entrance, and twenty seconds into the
recording there are about five seconds of wind noise. I chose not to remove
this as it would have disrupted the 'rhythm' of the sequence.
Be warned, the recording lasts
for nearly 49 seconds, ending only when the Starling suddenly went silent
again. Consequently the file size is 762KB
Hear the sounds
 The
Robin - almost a permanent resident of the garden, we can usually
depend on the male to bring music to the garden through most of the year.
This recording was made on 9 February 2006, and was one of the first
occasions I have heard it singing loudly this year. It was early in the
evening, going on for 6pm and it was perched near the top of the Birch tree.
To fit more calls in the clip I have shortened the interval
between each call from about 5-6 seconds down to around 2 seconds - file
size: 373KB.
Hear the sounds
This second recording was made on 3 February 2007 while a Robin sang quite
quietly from deep in the safety of our Hawthorn tree. As before, in order to
fit as many calls in as possible, I have shortened the gaps (sometimes over
10 seconds) between calls - file size: 423KB.
Hear the sounds
 The
Coal Tit - Small birds that only visit to feed, the have a high
pitched, quite weak call which usually includes two notes - this one seems
to be the one described as 'tsee' or 'tsui' in my Collins bird guide.
In the recording, made around 4pm on 17 Feb 2006, you can hear the call
against the backround of the lower pitched chirping of the Sparrows in the
Hawthorn. The pair of Coal Tits had come for their only visit of the day -
file size: 245KB.
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 The Great Tit - Two recordings from within a minute of each other
(8.15am, 1 March 2006). The first was from a tree several gardens away, and
went on for several minutes -
file size: 257KB.
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As soon as that stopped, the pair of Great Tits came to the Hawthorn. The
male saw me, uttered these calls, and they both flew off again -
file size: 172KB.
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Next, a call made by the male after dusk on the evening of 11 April, while
his partner settled down in the nestbox -
file size: 367KB.
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A recording made on 27 January 2007 when a pair of Great Tits and five Blue
Tits in our Hawthorn tree were surprised by the appearance of a Sparrowhawk.
The Hawk didn't attack, but the call you hear continued for nearly five
minutes before the birds calmed down. The chattering calls are the Blue Tits
while the sharp (usually double) calls are all by one of the Great Tits. Its
partner seemed to stay silent and had started hunting for food again over a
minute before the calls stopped.
While they are very similar, this Great Tit panic call lacks the high
pitched 'squeak' that precedes the main calls in the previous recording -
file size: 345KB.
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Another Great Tit recording (on 7 February 2007), this time as a male
displayed to his partner(?) while I think there was a third bird close by -
file size: 361KB.
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 The
House Sparrows - A squabble
(21 Feb 2006)- Our resident flock can be heard at
most times of the day, sometimes chirping 'happily' or, as in this case
creating a terrible dim as a group of 7 birds get involved in a tremendous
squabble in the Hawthorn. You can hear their wings flapping against each
other and the branches.
It went on for another 20 seconds before they flew at high speed to the
bottom of the garden, recovered their composure and returned to feed
together -
file size: 378KB
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 The
Goldfinch - Very nervous little birds which are now regular visitors
in the garden (in 2006) and their bubbly calls can be heard here through
much of the day.
This recording was made on the morning of 27 August 2006 when there were
numerous Goldfinches in the Birch tree, the seeds of which are now starting
to ripen. In the backround you will also hear the calls of some crows that
are in residence in trees in the Brickfields Country Park.
-
file size: 313KB.
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 The
Siskins - Regular visitors in the first few months of the
year, with their best year yet in 2009, giving me my first chance to record
their songs as they perched high in the Birch tree.
Notice how their babbling is interspersed with occasional rasping calls.
This 30 second recording was made on the morning of 20 February 2009 -
file size : 469KB
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 The
Blackbird - From Spring, through much of the Summer the resident
male Blackbird spends a lot of his time high up in a conifer proclaiming his
ownership of the territory -
file size: 307KB.
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Recorded on 1 February 2007, the following clip is part of a recording that
extended over several minutes during an interaction between two male
Blackbirds in the conifers. They had been following each other about from
one branch to another and then paused, during which time the leading bird
produced a complex, mainly quiet sequence of calls. -
file size: 394Kb
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the sounds
When he stopped, the 'chase' restarted, and as they hopped from one branch
to another the leading bird produced single quiet chirps, heard here between
the chattering of a nearby Magpie
- file size: 176KB
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 The
Wren - A bird that I hear more often than I see in the garden, where
I am still to capture a photograph. The picture seen here was taken in
Cornwall in June 2005.
The recording was made on 29 March 2006 as a Wren sang from the tops of
the line of conifers beyond our garden -
file size: 349KB.
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 The
Frogs - Spawning, A process which starts in late February, but is
usually a start and stop process until the arrival of a warm, sunny day in
early March. This is enough to trigger off the frog chorus.
In this recording, the croaking is interspersed with splashing
sounds as frogs cross the clump of spawn in the photograph, on their
way to where the action is! -
file size: 320KB.
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 Hedgehogs
- This recording was made on 24 August 2006 at around 9.30pm
when there were two hedgehogs in the garden. One was making these sounds as
it reversed most of the length of the garden with the larger one following
closely, and occasionally trying to go in a circle around it. It is a sound
we hear quite often during the Summer.
I was brought up in a house literally surrounded by railway tracks and
steam trains, and the sound always reminds me of a steam engine struggling
up an incline with a heavy load in tow -
file size: 323KB.
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 Grey
Squirrel - This recording was made on 14 October 2008 at
around noon.
I had heard the calls for the first time the previous day but hadn't seen
the source, hidden high in the conifers beyond the bottom of our garden.
This time the calls started in the same place, but then the squirrel came
into view and continued to call as I watched.
-
file size: 419KB.
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 Peacock
butterfly - This recording was made on 27 October 2013.
A Peacock butterfly, found resting in our hallway reacted to being
disturbed by rapidly (and noisily) opening its wings to reveal its four
eyespots momentarily before closing them again quickly.
This defensive display was repeated, usually in pairs, a number of times before it rested
again. This clip is of such a sequence, recorded using a small
microphone placed just in front of the butterfly.
-
file size: 565KB.
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 Solitary
wasp in burrow - This recording was made on 7 August 2013
I used an old Piezo earphone as a contact microphone in an attempt to
listen in to the activity of an unidentified solitary wasp working in its
burrow in decaying timber.
There are two sessions during which you hear the wasp biting at the wood,
separated by a period of shuffling as (presumably) it moved debris.
-
file size: 953KB.
Hear the sounds
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