Peace on Cranbrook Down, with abundant flies & bees, and birds

Yet another immersive peaceful soundscape, quite near the location of my previous 'straight' natural soundscape uploaded here (https://freesound.org/people/Philip_Goddard/sounds/812800/ ). This was in overcast but gradually brightening conditions though still with no direct sunshine, in another June heatwave — this day being a slightly cooler exception here, though still sweltery for hiking. It has more profuse close flies and bees activity, including bumblebees, than I've captured in a recording before. No grasshoppers this time, presumably because of lack of direct sunshine.

We also get periodic song from skylark, stonechat, meadow pipit, and briefly, distant willow warbler, and occasional bursts of contact calls from a small flock of linnets. Stonechat alarm calls are heard more than on previous recordings from here - probably because my base for my packed lunch and catnaps while the recording was running was in the territory of one of them, so it or the pair were very edgy about my presence just there

This is also the least wind-affected so far of all my Cranbrook Down recordings, and, ironically, that was in spite of the position I used this time being on top of the hill-fort ridge and in a slight dip on it (which would tend to channel the very light westerly breeze), though slightly sheltered from that breeze by some low bracken, heather and gorse. It was probably remaining below 2 Bft, and it proved not to be obviously audible anywhere in the recording, and most of the time was not visible on the waveform at all. The full recording was some 1h 32', but in editing this got reduced to 1h 11' because of high-altitude aeroplanes (and of course the initial 'me' disturbances at beginning and end).

I made the recording on 29 June 2025, over the middle part of the day directly on top of the rounded south-east corner of Cranbrook Castle (an ancient hill fort), on top of Cranbrook Down, high above (south of) Fingle Bridge (Teign Gorge, Drewsteignton, Devon, UK).

There's also a quite 'wow' half-speed version of this recording, split into two parts:

Part 1: https://freesound.org/people/Philip_Goddard/sounds/814312/

Part 2: https://freesound.org/people/Philip_Goddard/sounds/814313/

Advisory
This was a very quiet soundscape, and I've amplified it a fair bit to be a worthwhile experience in a more normal listening place. It's still very quiet at the beginning, and overall needs a quiet listening place, even when headphones are used. High-grade headphones strongly recommended, to hear all the detail, as much is distant.

This recording running. We're looking roughly west. Close in front of recorder are some low gorse flowers (just to right), and a small patch of flowering bell heather (just to left but colour not showing in this view). Both are popular with bees and bumblebees.
Recorder is facing steeply upwards to minimize acoustic shielding from the close vegetation and maximize more distant detail.

Techie stuff:

Recorder was a Sony PCM-D100, with two nested custom Windcut furry windshields. It was placed on an Aoka carbon-fibre mini tripod (low, to minimize wind exposure). I had the mics set at my default wide-angle setting — 120°.

Post-recording processing was to apply EQ in Audacity to correct for the muffling effect of the windshield, and used TDR Nova GE VST plugin to make occasional traces of high-altitude aeroplane sound less noticeable, as well as any possible very slight mic wind noise.

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