Skylarks and distant thundering surf north of Bude, Cornwall

Skylarks singing their uplifting flight songs above a clifftop field, against a gently thundering backdrop of a modest Atlantic surf, just some 1½ miles north of Bude, Cornwall.

I have an attack of hay fever to thank for this recording, which I made on 16 May 2014. I'd hitch-hiked out from Exeter to Bude with the aim of walking to Hartland Quay or even Hartland Point within the day (a 'killer' walk), but as soon as I got walking I was assailed with hay fever and quickly developed a general feeling of lassitude and weakness of the legs, so it was clear that I was going to make it only a relatively short walk — and then the skylarks drew my attention, and I suddenly thought Wow, what am I waiting for?, and improvised to cover my lack then of a suitable-size tripod, using my walking stick to raise the recorder sufficiently for this purpose.

Getting an optimal balance between surf sound and the skylarks required careful thought and a series of listening spot-tests in various positions. Because the skylarks are high-pitched, the more hissy aspect of the sea sound needed to be toned down — not with post-recording EQ, for that would degrade the whole soundscape, but with really carefully chosen positioning, also using the direction the recorder was pointing as one of my balancing 'controls'. That consideration, however, very positively keyed in with something else I was particularly wanting to capture at that time — the gentle thundering quality of such surf heard from a distance.

So, here we have it — that gentle yet powerful-sounding thundering, and the skylarks beautifully contrasting in the upper register. The odd other birds are heard fleetingly too — particularly the sweet twitterings of linnets, which would no doubt be assumed to be just more skylarks to noobies at bird identification (I myself hadn't made the distinction clearly at that time). Also the odd distant meadow pipit. The skylark sound comes and goes, so the focus shifts interestingly to and fro between surf and the birds.

This recording being made. Note how the recorder is facing obliquely inland, with the sea on its left, yet the recorder has placed that sound hardly left of centre; my later D100 recorder model would have made a much more accurate job of it, and the sea sound would have been altogether clearer.

Techie stuff:
The recorder was Sony PCM-M10, with Røde DeadKitten furry windshield (original, superior, version, with light grey fur), and it was placed by means of a GorillaPod on the handle of my Leki Wanderfreund walking stick firmly stuck into the ground.

Initial post-recording processing was to apply an EQ curve to compensate for muffling from the furry windshield, and, much more recently, to apply 200% widening of stereo soundstage, using A1 Stereo Control, followed by an EQ tilt away from the treble (straight line from no change at 100Hz, to -7dB at 8kHz) to compensate for the treble boost resulting from the stereo widening.

Please remember to give this recording a rating — Thanks!