Transformed natural soundscape: Nature-Symphony 33

Nature-Symphony 33 (Cornwall extravaganza: Pentargon Cove Guillemots' Coven) — A real fun piece this, though I expect little popularity for this here because the original field recording (https://freesound.org/people/Philip_Goddard/sounds/691662/ ) elicited very little interest indeed. What in the name of Winnie-the-Pooh you nice people out there have against guillemots is truly beyond me — they're surely among our birdie-friends' greatest comedians! :-) — And why does the title refer to the guillemots' coven? — Why, because they sound like humorous caricature of a bunch of stereotypical witches, of course!

This crazy-sounding deployment uses a somewhat condensed version of the original recording, which is used here unchanged as Layer 1, and with lower speed and pitch in Layers 2 and 3. Those two layers, as well as reduced speed / pitch, have a cathedral acoustic. The total level of background sound (almost all very gentle sea) is much higher than I'd normally allow for one of my Nature-Symphonies, but it wasn't the sort of sound I could reduce without clobbering the bird sounds. Indeed, I'd assumed from the beginning that for that very reason I'd never use this for a Nature-Symphony. — But then sometimes I strike gold through trying out something that appears unworkable, and at least I love the result here, and presumably at least a few other people will enjoy it too! — It would also make an excellent sleep-assist soundscape for some people, and indeed much healthier than almost all supposed sleep-assist sounds, because it refreshes and augments good brain function instead of encouraging sleep by boring the listener into an unhealthy semi-oblivion.

I made this recording on 14 June 2023, part-way down the steep grassy slope on the south end of Beeny Cliff, near Boscastle, Cornwall, UK. On this day, most unusually no swell at all was visible on the sea here — there being only minor superficial waves, making for exceptionally quiet sea conditions, even though still by no means silent. This, together with light wind, gave me an unprecedented opportunity for my experiment in using the recorder's narrow angle (90°) and widening that afterwards to get a real zoom effect, as though one were pretty close to that cave entrance. That also makes the sea sound against the cliffs seem much closer than it really was. Note that I swapped left and right channels for Layer 2, to improve separation in the final mix.

As well as the colony in / around the cave, occasionally we hear a guillemot or razorbill further along the line of cliffs and even closer at hand round to the right — presumably in the cliff alcove, with cave, hidden away immediately round to hard right and behind. Just once we get a beautiful reverberating couple of calls from a curlew flying by. On the sea surface, periodically we can hear one or more guillemots skimming the surface — flying so low that their wings are hitting the sea surface. That is a very rapidly repeating smacking sound, for the guillemot's wings are small and so have to be very fast-moving for flight to be possible.

Nearer at hand, the twittery little birds that seem to be almost constantly flitting around in the foreground are mostly linnets. Just occasionally we hear the odd beautifully sweet song fragments from one of those, though nearly all the time it's just their contact calls. Also around us, we periodically hear meadow pipit and rock pipit, while on the odd occasion a distant skylark may be made out. Other birds often to occasionally heard include herring gull, oystercatcher, and wren. If you hear a pheasant, that is on the hillside or top beyond the cove.

Advisory

Important! This really comes to life, and reveals masses of further detail, when listened to with high-grade headphones rather than speakers.

The original recording in progress, with final remnants of sea mist gradually dissolving. The main guillemot / razorbill colony is in / around the last cave on left, which is big, with two entrances separated by the column that's only just visible in this view. What isn't clear is that the recorder is actually on a little rocky prominence, so the grass and cliff-edge beyond it are further away than is apparent here. The recorder is facing just slightly right of the cave.

Some of the guillemots high up on the column separating the two cave entrances (photo taken 12 June 2021)

Techie stuff:

The recorder was Sony PCM-D100 (mics unusually set to their 90° narrow angle), with two nested Windcut furry windshields. It was placed on an Aoka carbon fibre mini tripod.

Post-recording processing was to apply EQ in Audacity to correct for the muffling effect of the windshield, and use of A1 Stereo Control VST plugin to widen the soundstage to 120° (the recorder's normal wide-angle coverage), so to produce a zoomed-in result.

Layer processing and deployment:

Layer 1: original sound: unchanged speed and pitch. Panned 20% left

Layer 2: speed reduction to give pitch a tritone below original. Panned 20% right

Layer 3: half-speed, and thus an octave below original. No pan adjustment.

Layers 2+3 given middling-foreground cathedral acoustic in OrilRiver VST plugin.

Layer lengths and alignment adjusted to stagger beginnings and endings, the work beginning and ending with Layer 3.

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