Disturbance (racing cars) during evening birds recording on Dartmoor

From the sublime to the hilariously hideous! Motorbikes are bad enough if you're out in the wilds for peace and quiet, but what about these crazy individuals racing cars on the relatively narrow, hilly and winding roads over Dartmoor, shattering the peace as they go?!
… Evening birdsong on west flank of Bellever Tor, near Postbridge, on Dartmoor, Devon, UK — a section I had to cut out of three of my four concurrent recordings because of two or three joy-riders without any regard for other people's peace or indeed safety (on the roads). Be hilariously outraged at the mindless brats — or, of course suitably indignant that this funny little man has anything at all to say against such worthy and honourable gentlemen doing what they consider they have a right to do on our supposedly Green and Pleasant Land!

This is a ten-minute section cut out from one of four widely separated concurrent recordings that I made during the evening / dusk period on 31 May 2019, sheltered from an initially moderate but decreasing south-westerly breeze by self-seeded Sitka spruce trees outside the forestry perimeter on the west flank of Bellever Tor, near Postbridge, on Dartmoor, Devon, UK.

This clip is from the recording from my recorder labelled R6, at the most southerly position used in that session. It was thus the most exposed to the sound of traffic on the Dartmeet road, particularly in the vicinity of Lower Cherrybrook Bridge. The traffic would have been heard louder in the vicinity of Dunna Bridge (nearer Dartmeet), the closest point on that road, but it appears that the shape of the land was shielding the vicinity of Bellever Tor from most traffic noise from round there.

In this cut-out clip I've included a little undisturbed lead-in and lead-out. Soon we hear a distant motorbike, presumably coming round on the Dartmeet road at Lower Cherrybrook Bridge. We hear it to rear-left, because we're facing NNE. That was actually the last of a long succession of motorbikes — disturbing enough in themselves, but for the most part riding in a relaxed and considerate manner. As that goes out of earshot, so we hear the first, almost mosquito-like, hint of a distant very highly revved car a bit right of centre, on its way on the Moretonhampstead to Princetown road.

The sound comes and goes as the pair or trio of the brats get closer, the closest point being a little south-west of Postbridge, at Higher Cherrybrook Bridge. While they're very distant still, we can hear a faint reverberation throughout much of the forestry on our left, at about the same level as the direct sound, from which we're shielded by some of the forestry.

The sound isn't hugely loud at that closest point, albeit still disturbing to this quiet soundscape, because Bellever Tor and its immediate vicinity is all shielded from traffic noise in that direction (to WNW of the tor), yes, by the forestry. — But I was already aware they'd got a trick up their sleeves as they bombed off towards Princetown, for this had happened on my evening session there a couple of weeks before. It sounds as though peace is restored, for just a minute or two, the time it takes them to reach Two Bridges and turn off onto the Dartmeet road. The disturbance soon progressively returns, now further to the left, becoming hideously loud as they come past us actually to our rear-left, presumably in the vicinity of Lower Cherrybrook Bridge. If you listen carefully you can hear some echo / reverberation in the forestry right round our left side.

What isn't captured very well in any of the recordings was the jaw-dropping moving echo from those confounded cars across the front of the dense stand of forestry down on the west side of Bellever Tor (to left in the lower photo) once they came through around Lower Cherrybrook Bridge. It really was spectacular from my own position, which was away from the recorders, somewhere on top of the tor at that time (trying to work out where best to place the fourth recorder). Indeed, from that position I was getting more noise from that echo, which moved rapidly along that dense stand of forestry from left to right, than from the direct sound from the cars.

Actually all that echo and reverb is there in the recording during the very loud 'return' phase of that disturbance, albeit nothing like as clearly differentiated as I heard it. Just keep it clearly in mind that the direct sound is then clearly rear-left, and so all the sound of the cars that is coming from straight-left or further round to the right is All echo / reverb. Note too, how as soon as the cars have gone out of direct earshot for the last time, we're still hearing a quieter echo in the forestry straight ahead and then round, quieter, to rear-right.

This disturbance was much stronger this time compared with the previous time, because then the wind was easterly, and this time it was south-westerly, drawing up all the traffic noise from the Dartmeet road for my 'entertainment'. It sounded for all the world as though they were driving (if that's really the right word!) right up here between the tor and the forestry on its west flank.

View roughly south from Bellever Tor, with the tiny yellow arrow pointing out the vicinity of Lower Cherrybrook Bridge on the Dartmeet road, from where we eventually hear the loudest disturbance; it's a bit over a mile away. The recorder was among some young self-seeded Sitka spruce trees down on the west flank of this hill — off to the right in this view. (photo taken on 8 June 2018)

Looking roughly NNW from Bellever Tor, pointing out recorder placements for this all-night session, towards the end of the session early the following morning. The recorder that this clip was taken from is off to left, being due west of the tor. The road from Moretonhampstead to Princetown is well-hidden from here by the forestry and the broad hill (Lakehead Hill) ahead, so traffic disturbance from that road is bound to be pretty limited.

A fuller, more contextual, description of this session, but not the disturbances, (as the culmination of a sequence of prospecting and rehearsal sessions, to greatly improve on the previous year's blighted all-night session here), is to be found at my page The inspiring frisson of an all-night recording session out in the wilds.

Techie stuff:
The recorder was a Sony PCM-D100, unusually with just one furry windshield (Windcut, custom), and it was placed on a Hama normal-size lightweight tripod.

Initial post-recording processing was to apply an EQ curve to compensate for muffling from the furry windshield.

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