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Bafflingly bizarre, with echoes for 'sensitive' people of tormented spirits, tortured children, demons, sorcery — whatever! — This is my first recording of these little wonders. From a high viewpoint above the mouth of the Cot Valley in the middle of the night we eavesdrop on what seems to be quite a large number of them, doing their display flights. Most are females; the males are recognisable for their thinner, higher, less wheezy and more squealy voices. — But now let's just lie back and listen to the performance weaving about down below, while we gaze again at those stars and whatever unknowns the sky holds for us…
For me this capture, in the small hours of 25 June 2014, is a real historical 'document'. This was my first season including the odd all-night sessions, coinciding with the longest days, and a few nights before this I'd had a not-all-that-fruitful session on a clifftop by Gurnard's Head, near Zennor. During that night, on the odd occasion I'd heard the most bizarre-sounding bird flying around while I was having naps in the soft grass there, awaiting however much of a dawn chorus might happen out here. I did my best to memorize that weird call, and its distinctive rhythm, and would try to look it up online.
But other things had taken my attention, including preparing for my next all-night session, to be based somewhere in or near the mouth of the Cot Valley, near Cape Cornwall, St Just, Penwith, Cornwall, UK, so I'd mentally shelved that little conundrum. I was thinking just of the dawn chorus.
For this session, after some afternoon prospecting, I made my night base just off the coast path, high up, overlooking the valley mouth, somewhat concealed from the coast path by the odd mining-connected ruins, and at the top of a scree-like big spoil-tip that extended well down the slope into the valley. The coast path here took a much more genteel route to cross the valley, going a good way inland in order to reach the valley bottom, so my base spot was peaceful and pretty undisturbed. I chose two spots for the two recorders for the dawn chorus: one beside the coast path about ⅔ down towards the valley bottom, and so in good earshot of the edge of various inland copses.
The other recorder I finally placed only a little removed from my base, just very slightly down from the top of the rather ankle-twisting spoil tip, overlooking the valley mouth. Really l wasn't meaning to put either recorder out at that point, for they would gather dew, but somehow I was feeling impatient to have some impression that the session was already primed to go.
Then it was interminable waiting time, as the sun gradually edged down, colours changed and darkened, and, ever-so-teasingly gradually the silence grew, knowing nothing of the continuing gentle chuntering of the sea way down there in the valley mouth. I started alternating periods of rather uncomfortable lie-down on not quite sufficiently even ground, and going for little walkabouts on the coast path. Eventually stars started popping up out of nowhere. The lie-downs became increasingly wondrous experiences for me, for I'd never before been lying on my back like that out in the wilds at night and feeling that inner fire of connection as I silently or whisperingly 'wowed' again and again as the stars multiplied, satellites passed across, stars that were supposed to be stationary often appeared to be moving (just an illusion of course), odd little intense point flashes, tiny lights slowly moving across the sky — little beacons of aeroplane travel to far-away places—
Something crept up on my awareness. What was that? … Bloody hell, it's one of those again, way down there, and it's flying around …Wow, that's two of them! … No, there's more! — Hey, WTF am I doing just lying here, with that recorder already set up?! — Yes, so just for a moment I dismissed the stars, and made my way carefully with my light walking stick on that ankle-twisting stuff to readjust the recorder's facing direction (obliquely across valley mouth and out to sea) to make the most of where the weird birds were flying about down there.
Once that was running, I took the other recorder, with tripod, across the valley for an attempt to record the little weirdies at closer quarters. I did get a recording, but later discarded it because the birds were largely drowned in the sea sound. I'd actually needed a much shorter tripod so I could place the recorder where it would be relatively shielded from the higher frequencies of the sea sound.
Once I'd hitch-hiked back to my Exeter abode, it took only a quick search engine try with "seabird strange sounds at night" to direct me to the identity of my new little friends!
Advisory
High-grade headphones are particularly recommended in order to hear all the
detail and capture the eerie sense of movement. Also, because this is a PCM-M10 recording, with its atrocious stereo imaging vastly improved by later processing, if you do hear it through speakers it can sound phasey or give various phase cancellation effects.
Early sunrise time, the 'Manxies' having long packed-up their performance till another night. You can still just see the recorder in position on the spoil tip on right, just touching the sea horizon.
Another early sunrise view showing a bit more of the valley mouth, but with the spoil tip largely hidden by all the foreground tangle of bracken and bramble.
Techie stuff:
The recorder was a Sony PCM-M10, with just one furry windshield — a Rode DeadKitten (original, more effective, version)
Post-recording processing was to apply EQ in Audacity to correct for the muffling effect of the windshield, and stereo enhancement in the A1 Stereo Control VST plugin, and subsequent further adjustment by means of a 'tilt' EQ curve to catch the sweet-point between maximum detail and the most natural sound (i.e., as I heard it out there).
Please remember to give this recording a rating — Thank you!
This recording can be used free of charge, provided that it's not part of a materially profit-making project, and it is properly and clearly attributed. The attribution must give my name (Philip Goddard) and link to https://freesound.org/people/Philip_Goddard/sounds/688774/
Type
Flac (.flac)
Duration
86:48.149
File size
446.1 MB
Sample rate
44100.0 Hz
Bit depth
16 bit
Channels
Stereo
9 months, 3 weeks ago
Sounds like that would be a fun experience — enjoy! :-)
9 months, 3 weeks ago
Thank you, Philip.
This will be used to augment a live reading of 'Ness' by Robert Mcfarlane, combined with eerie synthesized sounds, by scoring 'the Green Chapel', which is a partially ruined chapel where military tests are performed. In this book, the scientists sing 'the firing song' multiple times, and the first time they do, "... voices that do not seem to possess corresponding bodies join in with them". This seemed rather fitting.
Cheers to another adventure!
10 months, 1 week ago
Thanks!!!