Personal Website of Philip Goddard — www.philipgoddard.com

Free Natural Soundscape MP3 Downloads
For Joyful Stress-Reduction

Recorded and offered by Philip Goddard
to help save your sanity!

First day of COVID-19 lockdown — A new season, a new beginning…
First day of COVID-19 lockdown
- 24 March 2020, in Exeter, UK
Spring was here, and even then, as the news continued to darken, a new rebuilding phase was already gradually coming into sight…

That was my prompt to create this page, just six days later.

See also Philip Goddard's Digital Download Catalogues

Some long sound recordings offered to help make sense of this difficult time

Introduction

Especially for anyone living on their own, this time of pandemic shenanigans is a horrible and often anxious experience. You're stuck between the walls of your abode, while the beauties of 'Mother Nature' carry on their seasonal performances, more or less without you.

So, on 24 March 2020, the first day of lockdown here in Exeter, UK, it came to me to put up MP3 files of a small selection of recordings of beautiful and spacious natural soundscapes to help take you beyond the anxieties, so you can be in touch with grounding and inspiring sounds — and if in the past you haven't got out into the wilds much, I hope you'll start getting inspired to do so once you're free of the restrictions.

For one thing, getting out on vigorous walks, and especially full-blown hikes, not only improves your mental well-being, but also considerably enhances your immunity to infections of at least the vast majority of types.

Indeed, that's one important reason for taking a sensibly long and vigorous daily walk out in the countryside or other open space(s) available to you during any lockdown if you possibly can — of course keeping your two metres distance from anyone else for your own and their safety.

These are entire recordings — not versions cut down to make a CD. When I say 'entire' I mean the entire fully edited version.* In some cases even more than half the original recording had to be edited out because of masses of disturbances (aeroplanes, traffic, people yacking, dogs barking, and so on). But the results are tremendously worth all that trouble.

* Except for the half-speed wind chimes recording, which is made from part of a longer normal-speed recording.

The versions here are all in the popular MP3 format, at 128bps in order to limit the still large download sizes.

Also, note that almost all of these recordings have CD-quality FLAC download versions available, and where that's the case I give a link to the respective page in my CD / Digital Downloads Store, where you could order what's taken your fancy.

Now let's get 'wicked' with some weird and wonderful soundscapes…

COPYRIGHT

Please note that the sound recordings presented here are ALL still copyright, NOT public domain!

You are welcome to use them freely for your personal life enhancement, but unauthorised use of them for financial gain is forbidden, as is posting any of them online.

If you want to use extracts in works of your own that are going to be posted online or otherwise published, then you'll need to ask for permission. Each case would be considered on its own merits, but a credit would always be required, and a fee may be applicable, depending.

If you want to share any of these recordings (good — please do!), the allowable and only decent way to do so is to share a link to this page. Fair's fair!

Descriptions
Location photos
Free MP3 digital downloads of entire recordings
Option for purchase of CD-quality FLAC download
via the respective Digital Download Catalogue page …

Predominantly Sea

Magnificent very deep rumbles and booms from waves in deep cave system, Beeny Cliff, near Boscastle, Cornwall, UK
Beeny Cliff alcove with deep cave hidden below
The undercut alcove on Beeny Cliff, with deep caves hidden below…
Beeny Cliff — cave entrance seen from down south side of alcove
Just beside the fairly precarious recorder position. The booms were coming from the visible cave and presumably also from another going in at right-angle to that one, hidden in the shadow.

Recording made on 3 September 2014, from down the side of the main cliff alcove and facing into the two tall cave entrances from which all the booms and rumbles were issuing.

Peaceful and sort-of quiet, yet breathtakingly huge-sounding on account of the depth and tallness of the cave system in which the sea is making those very, very deep and reverberant rumbles and booms. They sound rather like distant thunder, but deeper, with a much higher proportion of very low, 'earthquaky' frequencies — say 30Hz down to well below the limit of anyone's hearing, with a beautiful gentleness about the sound, which adds to the sense of menace.

Without a very good speaker system with well extended bass (right down to at least 30Hz and preferably 20Hz at a reasonable level) you will get little idea of these wonderful sounds!

Download (79', 72MB)
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A CD-quality digital download of this recording is available:
PGC-142 — Beeny Cliff (4) — Great Deep Rumbles and Booms

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Gentle sea on rugged cliff-base rocks, with boats, seagulls, curlews and seals
The Carracks ('Seal Island'), from a little east of Mussel Point
The recording location, just a little east of Mussel Point, with view of The Carracks ('Seal Island')

We are just east of Mussel Point, on very wild and rugged coastline between St Ives and Zennor, Penwith, Cornwall, UK, on 18 August 2015. It's in the summer holiday season, and the peacefulness is rather blighted by an almost constant stream of boats taking groups of tourists from St Ives to spend a few minutes gawking at the presence or absence of seals on 'Seal Island', each then departing to pick up another load of tourists from St Ives — and so on through the day.

If I followed my normal rule of editing out all non-natural sounds, there would have been only about 30 minutes left of this recording, and actually with most of the best bits cut out. So I changed tack here and acknowledged that only some of the boats were intrusively noisy, while others in themselves rather added to the atmosphere in a friendly way, and I kept those in.

This, then, is a less manicured recording than is my norm, but it does have a captivating sense of vibrant authenticity as we hear the odd quietly passing boat and hear its bow waves splashing onto the foreground rocks while excited seagulls fly around and here and there the odd seals utter their disturbingly human-like moans.

Most of the seagulls are herring gull, but listen out for the occasional more distant great black-backed gull, which has an ungainly severely laryngitic tone (excruciatingly ugly to hear close-at-hand!). — But then again, listen out for the occasional curlew calls — one of our most exquisitely hauntingly beautiful-sounding birds.

Download (75', 69MB)
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A CD-quality digital download of this recording is available:
PGC-279 -
Gentle Sea near ‘Seal Island’ with Boats, Seagulls, Seals, Curlews

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Eerie vigil beside Shag Rock blowhole, near Perranporth, Cornwall, UK
Recording the blowhole at tip of Shag Rock headland, Perranporth
Recording the blowhole in misty conditions — precarious terrain! The blowhole spray seen here is from the SW-facing vent.

This is a truly weird soundscape. While the waves hit the main cliffs with heavy thumps, sending up plumes or even walls of spray, immediately around this minor headland they're mostly just writhing, with a sense of understated powerful menace — BUT, when tide and swell are right, additionally we get a whole range of powerful heavy whoomphs and gentler boomy roaring sounds, with ejected jets of spray, from this triple-vented blowhole system.

The loud one, sending up jets at a steep angle, is the central one, while the ones on either side generally make gentler sounds, sending more or less diffuse jets almost horizontally either side.

Our position this time is just a little back from the cliff edge, so the blowhole sounds are muffled and subterranean-sounding. However, there's something else. With the blowhole sounds more or less to our right, a frequent breathing-like sound, roughly synced with the blowhole activity, comes from a tiny fissure at the bottom of a narrow cleft in the rock to our left. It sounds for all the world as though this headland is alive and asleep — implicitly going to wake up at some point… — Eerie!

Download (65', 60MB)
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A CD-quality digital download of this recording is available:
PGC-165 — Sea Dramatics at Shag Rock (7) — Eerie Vigil With the Blowhole

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Wave sound patterns in middle of night, Branscombe Landslip, Beer, Devon, UK
Branscombe Landslip from near top, looking roughly west over it all
Branscombe Landslip, from the coast path near the top, facing roughly west

An amazing quite hypnotic experience — a tremendous sleep-assist soundscape.

The more or less direct sea sound is reaching us from two directions: relatively close-by, down below on the left and rather behind the recorder, and more or less straight ahead, distant, where you can see the distant beach in this photo. So, you get an ever-changing phase relationship between the near and far wave actions.

However, that's only a part of it, for the whole 'bowl' of the landslip area between main cliff to right and the fallen-away part left of centre is alive with a complex of echoes and reverberations from the waves in the different directions. The effect, therefore, is gently awe-inspiring, as though the whole landslip area isn't just breathing, but writhing-breathing!

Personally, despite its strongly soporific effect, I find it to be a bewitching sitting-up listen too, because of the multiplicity of nuances in this soundscape. It was even more bewitchingly awe-inspiring to be out there through that night, just listening to that until eventually the birds started into their dawn chorus (subject of another recording and download album).

The recorder position was actually rather lower down, beyond what you can see of the path in the photo, but facing in the same direction, so it was picking up more of the echoes and reverb.

Recorded in early small hours of 30 May 2017.

Download (117', 108MB)
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Two CD-quality digital downloads of similar recordings of the same thing a year earlier are available:
PGC-186, PGC-187 — Wave sound Patterns at Night, Branscombe Landslip, (1) and (2)

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Atlantic breakers with gentle rumbling and booms at cliff base below
Coast path and Towanroath engine house ruin during this recording session
Coast path and Towanroath (lower) and Wheal Coates engine house ruins (tin-mining relics) during this recording session. Recorder's black furry windshield visible as tiny black speck a little down the slope below the path, directly below my distant red rucksack by path at right.

A haunting extended hiking lunch-break sea panorama…
Recording made during extended lunch stop on hike on 5 February 2020 by the coast path between Chapel Porth and St Agnes Head, Cornwall, UK.

Recorder was placed on the steep grassy / heathery slope at the top of a minor alcove in the cliff, capturing the larger waves breaking before they hit land, and making fascinating and sometimes almost alarming sounds as they collapse or fall over. And then they each surge in, going out of sight and direct earshot below as they have their respective altercations with the cliff base and probably enter the odd cave down there, sometimes making little booms.

Most of the sound from the out-of-sight down-below is a gentle very deep rumbling, which sounds both very peaceful and slightly menacing. A wonderful soundscape for an uplifting eating stop!

Download (53', 49MB)
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A CD-quality digital download of this recording is available:
PGC-283 — Dramatic Breakers and Gentle Sea Rumbles at Cliff Base

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Wind Chimes in the Wild

Sea dramatics at Zawn Wells, near Land's End, with Woodstock Chimes of Polaris
Recording sea dramatics near Land's End, with Woodstock Chimes of Polaris
Recording Woodstock Chimes of Polaris with sea dramatics at Zawn Wells, near Land's End (photo captured a brief lull in the succession of large waves spectacularly hitting the line of cliff).

A thrilling yet intensely beautiful soundscape recorded on 5 June 2013, overlooking Zawn Wells, facing towards Land's End, Penwith, Cornwall, UK. The above photo is deceptive, for actually large waves were frequently coming in and hitting the line of cliffs you can see, giving heavy thuds and sending up huge plumes and sometimes walls of spray.

This clifftop is high enough that the hissiness of the sea action sounds relatively distant and 'soft', and the action, including the many huge splashdowns, seems gracefully slow, with an almost balletic grace.

Meanwhile, as the gentle wind gusts catch the little five-note Woodstock Chimes of Polaris, we hear a high-pitched chiming-out in a radiant-sounding pentatonic scale. It may be just me, but there's something about the sound of this particular chime that keys in with sea sound in the most exquisite and intense way, conjuring up all manner of vague impressions of departing ships and a sense of a great joyful excitement.

At face value that impression seems puzzling, but my inner inquiry points to this being an experience held in fundamental memory, originated an extremely long time ago in a human-type civilization that far pre-dates our Solar System, possibly even this Universe. I'm not claiming that to be historical fact, because we have no means to verify it, but at least the suggestion is that other people who are very open and aware would very likely get a similar impression.

Download (61', 56MB)
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A CD-quality digital download of this recording is available:
PGC-026 -
Wind Chimes in the Wild — Vol. 7

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Outlandish wind chimes combination above the Teign Gorge — Half-Speed
Outlandish wind chimes ensemble — David Blanchard Pluto and The blues chimes with bamboo chimes
Davis Blanchard Pluto and The Blues chimes (galvanized steel), plus large and small sets of cheap bamboo chimes during this recording session

This is one of the many fruits of my experimentation with combining different high-grade wind chimes precision-tuned to different scales. This experimentation culminated when I obtained four Davis Blanchard chimes and put pairs of those together.

The resulting sound is so extraordinary not only because the chimes are tuned to different scales, but because also the tuning system of all these chimes is just intonation. As a result, any particular nominal pitch, such as C6, may be slightly out of tune between two chimes that are tuned to different scales. This results in a mind-boggling play of what are known as microtonal intervals when the chimes are put together as a duo or ensemble.

In the case of this recording, I used the Davis Blanchard Pluto and The Blues chimes, and added further spice with a weirdly, beautifully, contrasting element — a large and a small set of bamboo chimes, bought dirt-cheaply from a local store.

— And then again, in this particular case we have a version of that recording that's been converted to half-speed, which has lowered the pitch of everything by a full octave. This sounds mind-blowingly ponderously ethereal and other-worldly, and enables you to hear all manner of exquisitry within the sound of each note and each interval — details that flash by far too quickly at normal speed for us to notice. I made a series of such half-speed versions of wind chimes ensembles and committed them to download albums.

This whole series of David Blanchard chimes recordings was made just below Hunting Gate, the highest point on the Hunter's Path, high up on the north side of the Teign Gorge, Drewsteignton, Devon, UK — this session being on 26 April 2017.

Download (39', 36MB)
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A CD-quality digital download of this recording is available:
PGC-245 — Outlandish Chimes Ensembles — HALF-SPEED (7)

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Outlandish wind chimes combination above the Teign Gorge (The session looked just as the photo for the last item, but without the bamboo chimes; all four Davis Blanchard chimes look almost identical to each other.)

Here we have a duo of the Davis Blanchard Pluto and Twilight chimes, recorded on 10 May 2018, again just below Hunting Gate, the highest point on the Hunter's Path, high up on the north side of the Teign Gorge, Drewsteignton, Devon, UK, on 10 May 2018. This time we hear the soundscape at normal speed, but it's still beautifully weird, with many microtonal intervals in the interactions between the two different but somewhat related scales.

Download (60', 56MB)
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A CD-quality digital download of this recording is available:
PGC-252 — Teign Gorge: Outlandish Wind Chimes Duos! (2)

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Predominantly Birds

Skylarks on Remotest Dartmoor (Cut Hill)
Cut Hill and Fur Tor, from S. slope of Little Kneeset
Cut Hill and Fur Tor, from south slope of Little Kneeset; the arrow indicates the top of Cut Hill, where these recordings were made.
Recording skylarks on Cut Hill, remotest Dartmoor
The second of these recordings taking place, on top of Cut Hill.

A tremendous celebration of joyful solitude in a remote wild place. Skylarks and a gusty breeze.

This is actually four relatively short recordings strung together with just a transient fade separating them. They were all made in well-separated positions on the broad summit area of Cut Hill (603m above sea level), Dartmoor, Devon, on 6 May 2013. This is reputedly the most remote spot in Southern England.

On this high moorland, even so well-on in the spring the purple moor grass on and among the peat hags is only beginning to show new green blades, and the overall appearance is still of dry dead grass from last year — and this can often be heard rustling in the breeze, especially in the third and fourth recordings.

As well as skylarks, the odd meadow pipit can be heard, and also the odd distant carrion crow.

Download (100', 71MB)
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A CD-quality digital download of all 4 recordings strung together in one file, is available:
PGC-014 — Skylarks Singing over Remotest Dartmoor, UK (2)

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Springtime panorama over Taw valley from lower slope of Belstone Tors, Dartmoor (2 recordings)
Taw valley, from lower slope of Belstone Tors, Dartmoor, in spring
Making the first of these recordings. The recorder's light grey furry windshield is visible in foreground (looks whitish); the recorder itself is perched by means of a tiny tripod on a rock about halfway between centre and left edge.

Peaceful springtime panorama near the edge of the open high moor. Our vantage point gives us a wide distant panorama of birdsong, with the gentle background sound of the River Taw in the bottom of the valley. Although the stream bed is mostly pretty bouldery and the water is therefore tumbling over it, for that amount of water flowing we would hardly if at all be hearing it from this position, but for the sound constantly echoing off the profusion of boulders on the lower part of the slope of Cosdon Hill, the other side of the valley. That's a major factor in making the sound to seem so disseminated — indeed, seeming to be coming from that hillside rather than the absolute bottom of the valley.

This is actually two recordings put together end-to-end, so you hear a fade-out and fade-in to inform you of the start of the second one. The photo above shows the recorder placement for the first recording (18 May 2013). The second recording (26 May 2013) was made about 100m in the upstream direction — i.e., behind the photo view here. Its situation was acoustically rather different, because it was in a slight hollow in the slope, so that the slope rose more steeply behind it and was quite bouldery — big mostly rather rounded boulders. The result of this arrangement was to make the distant panorama sound rather louder and closer.

In the first recording, birds heard include Meadow Pipit (main performer, but all distant), Woodpigeon, Cuckoo, Mistle Thrush, Skylark, Raven.

In the second recording they include Mistle Thrush (main performer — originally I mistook it for a blackbird!), Chiffchaff, Cuckoo, Meadow Pipit, Chaffinch, Woodpigeon, Skylark, Great Tit, Robin, Carrion Crow.

Sheep thinking 'WTF??!'

In both recordings, in addition to the birds the moorland sheep add significantly to the overall 'atmosphere'. Indeed, early in the second recording they are particularly vociferous evidently because they're expecting some feed to be brought to them. Presently we hear a farm vehicle on the track down there, with intensified sheep excitement, and then they go relatively silent.

Download (89', 82MB)
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Contact me to buy a CD-quality FLAC version of this, quoting the full title including the bit in parentheses — Springtime panorama over Taw valley from lower slope of Belstone Tors, Dartmoor (2 recordings) . Price £6 — but minimum spend is £10, so find something else, e.g., the next item, to add to your order.

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Springtime birdsong in copse in Taw valley, upstream of Belstone, Dartmoor (2 recordings)
Taw valley, from lower slope of Belstone Tors, Dartmoor, in spring
These two recordings were made in the near edge of the valley-bottom trees straight ahead, immediately prior to the recording made from up here.
Recording spring birdsong from drystone wall in valley bottom, Taw Valley, upstream of Belstone, Dartmoor
One of these recordings taking place. The recorder is on a tiny tripod on top of the drystone wall, a little left of centre (again, it's the very light grey furry windshield that you can see).

Again we have here two recordings strung together, but this time with a seamless join between the two. They are actually concurrent, made about 150m apart, and facing in opposite directions. They are thus getting the same overall soundscape, but with different perspectives — indeed, sufficiently different for them to feel to be consecutive rather than concurrent.

They were made in the morning of 18 May 2013, immediately prior to the first of the previous pair of recordings, from the copse extending along much of the bottom of the Taw Valley on Dartmoor, a little way upstream from Belstone. So, here we're hearing various of the birds that were distant in those recordings, with a closer perspective. We're still quite well separated from the babbling River Taw, because there's a fairly narrow valley-bottom flood meadow on this side along this stretch.

Birds heard include Cuckoo, Chaffinch, ?Long-tailed Tit, Wren, Raven, Woodpigeon, Mistle Thrush, Great Tit, Blue Tit, Carrion Crow, Nuthatch, Green Woodpecker, Dunnock.

Download (59', 55MB)
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Contact me to buy a CD-quality FLAC version of this, quoting the full title including the bit in parentheses — Springtime birdsong in copse in Taw valley, upstream of Belstone, Dartmoor (2 recordings) . Price £4 — but minimum spend is £10, so find something else, e.g., the previous item, to add to your order.

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Full Dawn Chorus in Cot Valley, near Cape Cornwall
Cot Valley mouth at dawn, from south side
Mouth of the Cot Valley during the session, from beside the recording position high up on the valley's south side.

Recorded from pre-dawn through to early morning, this soundscape is from high up on the south side of the Cot Valley, a little south-east of Cape Cornwall, Penwith, Cornwall, UK, on 24 June 2015, just a little inland but with a view to the valley mouth and the constant quiet background sound of the sea (to the left as the recorder was facing across the valley), also with the quiet rather hissy tricking sound of the small stream below, running down the valley bottom.

After a few minutes' quietude with just the distant sea and stream sound, the odd distant bird's twitter starts up — this gradually leading into the full-blown dawn chorus. This is nearly all distant, over a very wide panorama, with a multitude (probably over a hundred) of blackbirds, distant to very distant, singing for a good half-hour.

However, an amusing foreground contrast shows up just a little way through that blackbird extravaganza, helping to ensure you don't get bored by that. Namely, pretty close in the foreground, a whitethroat strikes up with its song. This is an almost hilarious contrast with the mellifluous blackbirds, for its voice sounds crotchety and scratchy, and it's very, very persistent with its regular little crotchety phrases.

At first I felt that this spoiled the recording, but more recently, especially since I greatly enhanced the stereo imaging of this and other recordings made with the Sony PCM-M10, I've seen it as an amusing, and in its own way harmonious, contrasting element that helps sustain interest in the continuing blackbird chorus. It encourages you to listen more intently to the blackbirds and indeed the wrens and other background birds in the gaps between the whitethroat's pronouncements. It does give over eventually, by which time we're really beyond the core dawn chorus and we're talking more of post-dawn or very early morning.

Download (113', 104MB)
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Contact me to buy a CD-quality FLAC version of this, quoting the full title — 150624 — Full Dawn Chorus in Cot Valley, near Cape Cornwall . Price £6 — but minimum spend is £10, so find something additional from my catalogue to add to your order.

A CD-quality digital download of that recording is available:
PGC-190a, 190b — Dawn Chorus in Cot Valley — From South Side (Lower Position) (1, 2)

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Branscombe Landslip — Blackbirds Singing In Wind And Calm
Branscombe Landslip from clifftop above, showing recording position
Overlooking the landslip from the main clifftop. The line of the coast path down there is partly visible, and the arrow points to the exact spot in a nettle bed by the path, where the recorder was placed for this recording.

Recording made in the Branscombe Landslip, near Beer, Devon, UK, on 8 May 2016.

I originally discarded all but about the last hour of this originally 3+-hour recording (by which time the wind had dropped right down), because of excessive wind disturbance. The Sony PCM-D100 recorder was still new for me then, and I hadn't yet organized a better furry windshield arrangement for this excessively wind-sensitive recorder model — and also the recorder was faulty, in that the right-hand microphone was much more wind-sensitive than the left one (Sony replaced it, thank goodness!).

Eventually, in 2019 I revisited the archived original of this recording with superior software for cutting out peaks of the lower bass, and remastered it with intensive editing to remove the many distorted peaks and huge number of people disturbances, and this version is the fruit of that major task.

I'd still have discarded most of the first two hours, if it hadn't been for the most exquisite singing of blackbirds during all the windiness. The wind blowing around through the trees, and indeed even the now much reduced microphone wind noise, seemed to give a sense of extra 'meaning' and significance to all the blackbird song. Also, from this particular position, various perching positions used by the blackbirds ensure that their song has various degrees of reverberation, which all gives a sense of one's listening to the shape of the land here as well as the wind and the birds.

Download (123', 113MB)
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A CD-quality digital download of this recording is available:
PGC-182f - Branscombe Landslip — Blackbirds Singing In Wind And Calm

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Peaceful Sea at Night with the 'Devil Bird'
Position of Manx Shearwaters recording on coastline south of Cot Valley
Looking south-east over mouth of Cot Valley towards distant Sennen Cove. The arrow indicates the spot on the coast path where this recording was made.

Eerie, eerie! — In the darkest hours of night (only), weird seemingly strangled and tormented calls, mistaken by many for 'evil spirits' or 'demons', come in and out of focus against the very gentle sea sound. This soundscape includes one hair-raising moment when one flies closely over the recorder. Just duck!

Eerie these innocent seabirds may sound (yes, they're Manx shearwaters), no doubt freaking some superstitious people, but the soundscape is truly awe-inspiring in a healthy way, inspiring one yet again to marvel at Mother Nature's inventiveness!

Recorded from the coast path a little south-east of the mouth of the Cot Valley, near Cape Cornwall, Penwith, Cornwall, UK, in the early small hours of 9 June 2016.

Download (75', 69MB)
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A CD-quality digital download of this recording is available:
PGC-193 — Peaceful Sea at Night with 'the Devil Bird' (3)

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Blackbird Wonderland with singing fence, by Teign Gorge
Blackbird wonderland by River Teign, with singing fence -1
Looking downstream, the River Teign just off to the right. The arrow points to the recorder for this recording, perched on top of a fence post.
Blackbird wonderland by River Teign, with singing fence-2
From a bit further downstream, we look back upstream, with the River Teign off to the left, and this recording's recorder perched on its fence post.

This recording was made concurrently with Blackbird Wonderland, by Teign Gorge (PGC-225a/b). This one captured sort-of the same soundscape, but from a different and rather superior perspective, and with a really fascinating difference. For the other recording the recorder was placed on a tripod on the ground (as usual), but for this one the recorder was placed (by means of a small GorillaPod) on top of a fence-post — the fence itself being two electrified wires.

As it turned out, that difference was significant because I had to cut a lot out of the recording made there because the wind had caused the wire to 'sing' at times (like a very crude aeolian harp), and the sound transmitted along the fence from where it was singing (somewhere out of my earshot) to the recorder perched on the post, despite my having used a shockmount. Then, finally in 2019 I did a volte face and decided to process and edit a new copy of the archived original recording, to include all the 'singing fence' episodes as a fascinating feature rather than unwanted blight, and this version of that recording is the outcome.

Just outside the Teign Gorge woods, just upstream beside the River Teign and with the rushing /babbling of that in the background, late afternoon on 2 May 2017, we listen-in to an ongoing and often lengthily sustained performance from many blackbirds, with other birds joining in too, and, later in the recording, even briefly a herd of non-mooing cattle chomping away at the grass to give a bit of peaceful 'atmospheric' accompaniment to the birds.

As with the other recording, at times mistle thrushes join into the blackbird ensemble — though always keeping more distant — and tend to infuse into the ensembles teasing hints of a jaunty 6/8 rhythm, which sometimes one or more blackbirds appear to absorb into their own improvisations — not so much by direct imitation but by making various of their phrases key in with the mistle thrushes in a particularly pleasing and musical manner.

Download (155', 143MB)
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A CD-quality digital download of this recording is available:
PGC-274 — Blackbird Wonderland with singing fence, by Teign Gorge

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Sea Echoes & Spring Birdsong in Branscombe Landslip (West end)
In lower end of Branscombe Landslip, looking west through trees
Just slightly above the recording position, overlooking it; the recorder was facing in almost the same direction as this view, but just a little more to the right.
In lower (west) part of Branscombe Landslip, looking at the main cliff towering above
The towering cliff across which we hear repeated wave echoes moving from left to right, on the right side of the soundscape.

Here we find ourselves down on the lower, west end of the landslip (near Beer, Devon, UK), in the woods and facing the towering chalk cliff where Hooken Cliff, leading in from the west, becomes the main cliff from which the whole landslip area had broken off a long time ago. We're shielded from the direct sound of the sea (to left), and we hear prominently the echo on the towering chalk cliff of each wave as it spreads round from left-of-centre to the right, giving the impression of the whole landscape breathing. Against this backdrop a variety of birds sing, and we hear frequent cackles from the fulmars nesting high up on the cliff.

With larger and better-separated waves than on previous recording sessions there (enough to have a gently thundering sound at times), this is a particularly spectacular and intriguing soundscape — with lots of birdsong, including a completely unexpected intriguing element — blackbirds singing exceptionally un-blackbirdy phrases, and in a most un-blackbirdy manner, as though taking the mickey out of me and others who think they know their birds, or perhaps on this occasion they were all drunk!

Recorded on 18 April 2018.

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Sea Echoes & Spring Birdsong (2) in Branscombe Landslip (West end)

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Dartmoor Birds' Evening Chorus, with Nightjars & Cuckoos
Forestry NNW of Bellever Tor, Dartmoor
Prime nightjar and cuckoo terrain NNW of Bellever Tor, during this recording.

Recorded just within the regrowing forestry edge a little to the north of Bellever Tor, near Postbridge, Dartmoor, Devon, UK, from rather late evening to almost complete darkness, on 31 May 2019. Some beautiful and haunting reverb and echo effects, especially from cuckoos, and with some rather hilarious close-by cuckoo sounds.

Birds heard include: Song Thrush, Chiffchaff, Blackbird, Chaffinch, Cuckoo, Tree Pipit, Robin, Blackcap, Tawny Owl (once), Wren, Nightjar.

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Dartmoor Dawn Chorus, with Nightjar Chorus & Cuckoos
Making the evening recording that was to run on to be this recording too
The evening counterpart of this recording being made. The recorder is difficult to see in this reduced-scale copy of the photo, but it's still picked out by the high-visibility strip around the top of the tripod (just right-of-centre, against the dead bracken). The recorder was actually left running from mid-evening to 7.30 a.m. packing-up time.

Full of 'atmosphere', this recording is one of four greatly successful concurrent recordings made at widely separated positions on the lower flank of Bellever Tor, near Postbridge, Dartmoor, Devon, UK, and in the forestry edge to west of the tor, in the early morning (from pre-dawn period) of 1 June 2019. It starts with a solitary distant cuckoo, which had actually been persistently cuckooing from before 2.30 a.m. BST. This gives an initially mysterious and even melancholy beginning, out of which the joyful celebrations are eventually to emerge.

Then gradually, very quietly, nightjars start insinuating their weird churring sound into the silent darkness — this building up to a full all-around nightjar chorus, while before long very gradually other birds start tentatively twittering their first utterances of the day — starting with a few skylarks.

The cuckoos are of especial note because of the number of them heard (indeed, they're never long out of earshot) and because of the haunting and beautiful echoes and reverberations they quite frequently produced in the forestry. Indeed, mainly late in the recording, even some cattle out on the open moor also produce strong echoes / reverbs in the forestry, and that effect is similarly beautiful and haunting.

To me personally, this is arguably the most beautiful and compelling soundscape that I've ever captured — well, er, apart from the fact that that particular all-night recording session produced four concurrent evening-into-night and pre-dawn-into morning recordings, and really they're all contenders for that accolade — each with its own individual strong points.

Birds heard include: Cuckoo, Nightjar, Skylark, Carrion Crow, Song Thrush, Willow Warbler, Blackcap, Green Woodpecker (alarm call), Goldcrest, Wren, Blackbird, Tree Pipit, Woodpigeon, Firecrest, Pheasant (distant alarm call).

Please be aware that the opening of this recording is extremely quiet, with just a very distant cuckoo audible — so you'll need to go easy on the volume control, otherwise some of the later birds may be uncomfortably loud. Likewise, the first incursions of nightjars and of skylarks are also extremely quiet.

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PGC-272 — Dartmoor Dawn Chorus, with Nightjar Chorus & Cuckoos

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Weather

Night Thunderstorm Over Exeter
Thundery shower the preceding afternoon
A thundery shower that came up during the afternoon preceding the recorded storm, seen from my living room in central Exeter.

A quite active thunderstorm with frequent lightning and a very long lead-in and build-up period because of the storm cloud's anvil-top being greatly drawn out in front of its line of convective towers. So, although its belated climax does give us two really dramatic quite close earth strikes (followed by fairly brief torrential rain), this storm overall is full of atmosphere and 'poetry', with the most exquisite peals of thunder, often of a seemingly balletic gracefulness as they extensively explore the storm's high anvil-top above us.

It was recorded in Exeter City Centre on the night of 18–19 July 2017, from a second-floor window (my bedroom) facing south-west over the bottom of the city to the fields and low hills beyond — essentially the same view as in the above photo. At this time of night the intrusive city sounds were few enough for most of the recorded storm to be still intact after editing them out — though in the very quiet spells some distant traffic is still heard at times, but not at an intrusive level.

Indeed, especially during the lead-in, that very quiet background noise serves a useful purpose in giving a proper grounding perspective to the faint murmurs, booms and rumbles, which the listener can hear to be suspended above, and to dwarf, the banalities of the odd distant passing vehicles — making the thunder sound all the more eerie and menacing.

Please note that because of the big dynamic range you need double the normal listening level (+6dB) to get anything like a worthwhile sound.

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PGC-229 — Night Thunderstorm Over Exeter
PGC-230 — Night Thunderstorm Passing-By

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Strong Wind in Drewston Wood, Teign Gorge
Recording strong wind in Drewston Wood, Teign Gorge — facing roughly east
Recording strong wind in Drewston Wood, Teign Gorge — facing roughly west
Making this recording, as viewed looking roughly east (top) and roughly west (bottom). The recorder is identified at a distance by its black furry windshield.

Not an actual gale, but probably 'strong' (force 6 Bft), gusting a bit stronger at times — somewhat stronger than on the recording presented on PGC-278. This recording was made on 1 February2020 just above the Hunter's Path (high up on north side of Teign Gorge, Drewsteignton, Devon, UK) within the upper western edge of Drewston Wood. The gusts come chasing and often roaring through the trees from the right — some rushing down into the deep valley (to left), while others seem to disappear into nowhere (presumably rushing across the valley well above the trees), and the most interesting ones of all go chasing around whither and thither. A greatly exhilarating soundscape.

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PGC-284 — Strong Wind in Drewston Wood, Teign Gorge

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