Barred owls, cow, wind, & fall field crickets (Neches riverbottom)

Recorded on Nov. 21, 2013 in the river-bottom of the Neches River (12am-4am). Used 2 NT1A mics and a Tascam DR-680 with Busman mod. Original tracks were recorded at 24-bit/96kHz, then stepped down to 16-bit/44kHz for uploading to freesound. Cardioid mics were spaced at 21cm with a 120-degree angle. Recorder channels were both set to high gain, which brought in a whole lot of extra detail.

The Story

My original goal was to record fall field crickets that night. I got that, plus a bunch of extra sounds I didn't expect. You'll hear Barred owls calling (the most talkative of all owl species) - I think there were 3 (1 up close and 2 far off). If it sounds like a howler monkey in the far-off distance, that's one of the calls the Barred owl makes. That's at about -2:13 or +2:23. It's hard to tell what it is at first. If you've ever heard this type of owl, then you'll notice 2 different ones. Their sounds overlap - one is hooting and one sounds like a howler monkey. And yes, you'll also hear a cow bellowing at -1:35 or +3:33. Not real sure where it came from - no fields, pastures, or farmland nearby. The Neches River itself was roughly a half-mile through the woods in front of me where I was setup. A steady wind caused a lot of strange sounds in the recording. Dead leaves, small tree limbs, and pine cones constantly fell all night. Hearing large, creaking limbs and tree trunks overhead made me nervous more than once. In deep East Texas, the pine trees easily reach 100 feet or more, and these were every bit of that. You may also hear something like steps or unusual movement in the brush - I think maybe these were small critters nosing around in the dark, or I hope so anyhow. As I sat in the darkness, I remembered wild boars also roamed those woods. Over the years I'd almost hit several as tall as the front of my vehicle. The thought prompted me to scan the underbrush with my flashlight - nothing there. I clicked it off and settled back again - mostly. An almost full moon overhead added a fairly spooky, riverbottom-esque feel to everything. And, of course, there was the constant ebb and flow of the night wind in the pines...

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The recording quality you hear in the sample above is of lower quality than what the download is. I think freesound.org chops off everything above 11,000 Hz (approx) for bandwidth reasons. Download the recording for full quality. Thanks for listening!

Other Notes:

* The mid-range of the wind isn't dipped because it would kill out the sound of the owls, which are in the same range: approx. 500 Hz