First light with mist in the Wye valley below
I've been continuing to take advantage of the lack of aircraft & road traffic this season, and this is another recording made close to home: at home, in fact! Getting the right conditions for a good sound recording is always a hit-and-miss affair, as everything has to be just right. I need not only a pleasing combination of birdsong, but lack of wind, road traffic, noise drifting up from the valley, sheep, etc. and each calm morning for the past week or so, just before first light, I've been setting up my microphones in my garden in the hope that one day everything will come together. This was such a day!
Mid-Wales is a good area for Redstarts (Phoenicurus phoenicurus), and I generally have at least one nest tucked into a crevice in a barn wall somewhere. This year they seem to be everywhere, and rather more tolerant of my presence, too. But maybe they've just finally accepted that I live here too! They are almost always the first birds to start singing each morning and this recording opens with the repeated call of a Redstart in a tree close by. It's only 4.30am local time and still quite dark, with the last hoots of a Tawny Owl just audible in the distance. The opening is very quiet, and almost a model of minimalism with the Redstart's refrain & continuous Cuckoo ostinato. Gradually, other birds join in until, at 10'30 a Blackbird strikes up its free-form melody in a tree almost directly overhead. This is not far from my bedroom window and is generally my "wake-up" call!
"Night splits..." is a line from WB Yeats' "High Talk", which I think perfectly evokes that moment where everything gets going on a spring morning.
Recorded: 2020-05-08 0430LT
Download full length recording:
21min, 35MB, .ogg format
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