Dawn chorus of skylarks, by Coast Path between Pentire Point and The Rumps

A full skylarks dawn chorus on 24 June 2018, from pre-dawn through to early morning, in field beside the coast path along the clifftop between Pentire Point and The Rumps, near Polzeath, Cornwall, UK, shielded from most of the sea sound, so it's a very quiet and peaceful soundscape.

Oh, what a performance I had to go through to get the set of three recordings that this session yielded! This session was sequel to a rather farcical one in the same place and with the same aim on the night of 12/13 June, which itself was sequel to my first attempt at this, on 22 May, on which latter occasion I was defeated by leg / ankle troubles and had to abandon early that afternoon and return home.

Even that aborted 22 May outing was very useful as a prospecting session, for I spent a few hours noting spots where a recorder could be sheltered from the wind and be facing in a suitable direction to capture the skylarks to best advantage.

The 12/13 June session was a brilliant set of learning experiences. with a rather farcical aspect. To quote from my journal:

"I’d taken out all 3 D100s, but at late dusk I set up just R5 and R6 at what seemed to be optimal spots for Manx shearwater, in case they did haunt this location.  In the event I was surprised at how many there were, compared with, say, my experiences of them at Beeny Cliff.  Late in their activity period I set up R4 at another position that was sounding promising.

"For dawn chorus I got caught out most frustratingly.  I’d been intending to set up recorders at c. 3.0 a.m., but owing to the Manx shearwaters performing a bit longer than expected, I deferred for a 3.30 setup for dawn chorus.

"The trouble was, just as I was taking in the first recorder (R5) from its night position, suddenly, after just the odd brief twitter here and there, the whole area was full of skylark song — presumably the whole lot of them! So then I had to do an emergency dash with R5 through the footpath gate by my base point, and quickly set it up in the field corner there.

"Then, as quickly as I could, I chose positions for the other two recorders and set them up — but of course all the time with the full chorus already slackening. Indeed, after only some 5 minutes the chorus was rapidly dying down, then continuing as just sporadic singing at any one spot. It was still a really nice lot of skylark song, but I’d missed the brief spectacular start-up, except for just a little bit of it on R5.

"After about an hour I moved R5 to a different spot as I wasn’t keen on it being so exposed to Polzeath and all the traffic noises that may come from there.  Another unexpected minus point was that virtually no other birds figured in the dawn chorus over the fields — more or less no meadow pipits or linnets even — though very late in the proceedings I noticed a few meadow pipits over the cliff slopes.

"Started taking down the recorders at 6.30."…

…"Examination of the recordings afterwards provided disappointments. For a start, when I’d first set up R5 I’d managed to change the input switch from mic to line, so it had recorded pure silence from beginning to end of the session! That was the only one that would otherwise have had anything usable of the initial full chorus.

"Then it became clear that, although the Manx shearwater recording on R6 had come out sort-of well, the sea was really louder than I wanted, and was producing a rather continuous sound, rather deficient in variation, so it would not make the best listening.Then R6 by the coast path, facing the wall and field, really had too restricted a panorama of the skylarks, because the tripod was shorter than me, and so the wall was restricting much more of what it could hear of the skylarks. 

"R4 was notionally better because it was on top of a low bit of the wall, facing into the field, but the sea sound behind it was really a bit too strong. Actually, when it came to editing the Manx shearwater recording, I found that it had sufficient Manx shearwater activity to make a worthwhile CD without doing any cuts to concentrate it.

"So, I definitely want to repeat this session, such time as I get the right conditions — very likely not this year now."

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Well, in the event I did repeat it, on 23/24 June the same year. Again I used three recorders. Two I put in the fields, and one on top of the drystone wall by the coast path, facing into the adjoining field.

This recording is from the spot where R5 had recorded only silence on that previous session. The chorus startup was more gradual than during the previous session.

Were there any disappointments from this session? — Actually, yes, one. I'd taken to using three nested furry windshields per recorder because of the D100's insane degree of wind sensitivity. All my very quiet night soundscapes this season turned out to have noticeable self-noise caused by the EQ to correct for the heavy muffling caused by the use of three 'furries' per recorder, the hiss being most prominent.

This session's two recordings in fields were quiet enough for me to hear that hiss. However, more recently I managed to reduce that self-noise somewhat, though I couldn't eliminate it altogether without seriously degrading the overall sound. The following year I used no more than two 'furries' per recorder, which meant I was then more limited as to where I could record without getting too much wind noise.

Advisory:
This is a very quiet soundscape; the wise listener goes easy with the volume control!

Photo taken on 19 April 2009, from near Pentire Point — rugged coastline to The Rumps. Note the drystone wall just visible top right, which continues just a little back from cliff edge towards The Rumps, being the boundary of pasture fields where skylarks deliver beautiful choruses. I made this recording from a rise just beyond the skyline visible from here.

With top of rugged cliffs behind us, looking across the skylarks-rich fields to New Polzeath, on the evening prior to this recording. The arrow points to exact spot where this recording was made. The little kissing gate at left marks the start of a track leading to Pentire Farm. The recorder was facing about ESE (rather to left of the direction of this view), to maximize coverage of the fields and thus the skylarks.

Techie stuff:
The recorder was a Sony PCM-D100, with three furry windshields (Windcut, custom), and it was placed on a Zipshot tripod.

Post-recording processing was to apply an EQ curve to compensate for muffling from the furry windshields, and, much more recently, noise reduction in Audacity was used to reduce somewhat the microphone self-noise (full frequency, not just the hiss).

Please remember to give this recording a rating!