Booming sea and fulmars in spectacular cliff chasm

A 'wow!' soundscape from within Zawn Rinny, a reverberant sheer chasm in the granite cliff formations at Gwennap Head, a few miles south-east of Land's End, Penwith, Cornwall, UK. The larger waves from this modest swell surge into this narrow channel and hit the end and often the end of side-clefts too, producing heavy reverberant booms, each immediately followed by an impressive-sounding splashdown.

Also, once in a while one or more of the roosting or nesting pairs of fulmars in the chasm perform entertainingly for us — their cluckings and cacklings much enhanced by the reverberance here. And between 49' and 56' into this recording, briefly we hear the scolding calls of a pair of choughs that were said to be nesting then in that same chasm. They (and first, the local seagulls) were getting agitated because of a small group of climbers on the cliffs to seaward of the recorder position, on the other side. For a short period you may faintly hear the odd talking between the climbers as they follow their particular climbing route.

The only sea sound that we hear directly is at and beyond the mouth of the chasm (to our left / rear). All the rest is echo off the chasm walls. Major booming dies out later in the recording, but there's still much to hold interest right up to the end.

This is a wider-angle panorama than that which I recorded here previously with the Sony PCM-M10 recorder, this time with more sense of a detailed three-dimensional soundscape, and of movement within it. That earlier recording still holds its ground on its own terms, however, for its rather larger swell and much more impressive booms. That will be uploaded here in due course.

Was the recorder position as precarious to get to as it looks in the photos? — Yes, and no. It undoubtedly felt very exposed and precarious, but I have a pretty good self-preservation instinct, and moved slowly, carefully using my light alloy walking stick as a supportive third leg. I wouldn't choose to go along there except for some specific purpose, because for a physically not very well balanced individual like me it was fairly risky, but when I did go there I simply kept mindful of the care needed. Sensible caution and precaution is what's required, not fear — which latter is a destructive devil, fit only for the recycling bin!

Advisory
To get anything really like the real life experience one needs to listen to this with high-grade headphones, whose treble is smooth and not over-bright.

The photos below are from earlier recording sessions, as it appears that I neglected to take any relevant photos during the current one. In both cases the recorders in those sessions were the Sony PCM-M10, with a light grey furry windshield. The recorder positions are nonetheless approximately the same as in the current session.

12 March 2014 photo of Zawn Rinny, from its head. The far recorder (faint tiny speck closely pointed to by the arrow) is facing obliquely across the chasm and towards us, as in the current recording. The seabird soaring about down there is a fulmar, not a seagull.

26 November 2013 photo of the same setup — a long-focus shot from the other side of the chasm. The arrow closely points to the very faint tiny speck (needs acute vision to spot it) that is the recorder's furry windshield.

Techie stuff:
The recorder was a Sony PCM-D100, with three nested custom Windcut furry windshields, placed on a 'mini'-size Zipshot tripod.

Post-recording processing was to apply EQ in Audacity to correct for the muffling effect of the windshields and correction for the D100's weakness in very low bass.

Please remember to give this recording a rating — Thank you!