Bird Sounds
Bird Sounds
A great passion of mine is sound recording of birds songs and calls. I currently record onto an Olympus LS-3, and prior to that I used Sony HiMD minidisc or an Edirol RO-9HR, using either a Sennheiser ME66 ‘short-gun’ microphone, or more rarely a Telinga Pro-4 or a LisN parabolic microphone. I also do all my own digital editing.
Many more of my recordings can be found on xeno-canto website. Here are some samples from my collection:
Baikal Bush Warbler: Short buzzing song from a wintering bird along a reedy channel, recorded from a boat.
Brown Bush Warbler: Insect-like song from a grassy clearing on Mt Victoria, Burma 09.04.13
Russet Bush Warbler: Vigorous insect-like song from a patch of weeds on Mt Victoria, Burma 05.04.13
Spectacled Warbler: Singing from dune bushes on the north Norfolk coast, the eighth British record
Garden Warbler: Singing at Woodbastwick on a June evening with church bells in background
Willow Warbler: Singing strongly at Hickling Broad on a warm May day
Ivory-breasted Pitta: Calling from a forest tree, with Blyth’s Hornbills audibly passing
Malayan Night Heron: A recording from Bhutan in May 2012, the first record for the country. Recorded from a hotel balcony in Samdrup Jongkhar
Reed Bunting: A typical cheery sound of wetlands in East Anglia
White-spotted Bluethroat: A rare visitor to the UK, singing on territory at Welney WWT reserve
Black Scoter and Long-tailed Duck: The eerie sound of wintering ducks inside an ice-bound harbour, Hokkaido, Japan.
Blue-fronted Robin: An elusive songster in steep mountain forest in Bhutan.
An early morning soundscape of Crimson-faced Liocichla, Small Niltava, and many other birds, near Deothang in the south-east of Bhutan
An evocative evening chorus of Collared Scops Owl and duetting Spotted Wood Owls in the open woodlands of Cambodia
I have been making sound recordings of birds from around the world for many years, and have built up a large collection. I am also attempting to build up a comprehensive catalogue of bird vocalisations from the regions that I visit regularly.
PRODUCTS
‘BirdSongID’ App. for Iphone
Dave Farrow/Robin Chittenden/Isoperla , featuring over 70 species of British Birds with sound recordings by me & photos by Robin Chittenden
Dave Farrow’s BirdSongId – iPhone App store or at Isoperla’s BirdSongId iPhone App
‘A Field Guide to the Bird Songs & Calls of Britain and Northern Europe’
In 2007 I authored my own title for the publisher Carlton, which is accompanied by two audio CDs with recordings of 200 species.
I also provided and edited all of the sound recordings for the Mitchell-Beazley publication ‘Bird’ that included a CD of recordings of 250 bird species, in mp3 format specifically for Ipod, plus I provided many recordings for the latest edition of the RSPB Field Guide to ‘Birds of Britain & Europe’ by Rob Hume that includes an audio CD.