WOODCOCKS AND BOUNDARY MICS AT MARAIS ROUGE
June 11th
I recently made a "parallel boundary SASS-type" mounting for a couple of small pip microphones (OK, OK, I confess - actually my son made it for me !) following the plans of Rob Danielson's PBB2N model and have been testing it out. This type of set up is more suitable for whole soundscapes than for focal species (which are more my "thing" as visitors to this site will know) but I have been looking for an effective mounting for long-duration recordings such as overnight or near to known roosts and maybe the occasional dawn chorus. For this type of recording I combine it with my Sony M10 recorder due to its long battery life and ability to automatically open new files every 2Mb of recording.
You can get lucky with focal species of course if they happen to come close and "surrender" to the mic set-up. This was recently the case when I left it out overnight at the end of June hoping to get some owls (but did not). The test site was at about 1,300m in the Swiss Jura an area within my "regular patch". In June there were many cows in the patchwork of fields adjacent to the forest so you can be entertained by the cacophony of bells that provide a regular backdrop when the cows are up there in the summer.
I have recorded Woodcock up there before and this bird flew past the mic at about 22.00h just as it was going dark and the Robins were singing their last after I had left, so I did not see it, normally they fly at least 30m or more above the ground so I was impressed with the clarity with which this one was picked up, along with the stereo effect of the rig.
Maybe I use too much imagination but listening with headphones the bird seems to approach from back right, fly behind the mic and depart front left. I also like the feeling of spaciousness of the cow bells as they echo around the forest and the hills. (EQ applied to all of these to remove long-distance traffic and aircraft rumble).
About an hour later it picked up the chitterings of what I thought was a nocturnal mammal, then interestingly two Woodcock pass by and the chitterings occur again.
A few weeks after I first posted this piece Hannu Jannes kindly wrote to me from Finland suggesting these "chitterings" are excitement calls made by two males flying together. A little bit of bookwork and further listening makes me now fully understand this. Thank you Hannu !
Finally about an hour after dawn, the insects are humming and a Bullfinch flies in and calls and sings quite nicely, the cows have been taken in for milking, so this is just nature. I can also hear Wren, Blackcap, Wood Pigeon, Chiff Chaff and Coal Tit - any others?
Clearly more trials needed in different settings, but I feel quite pleased with what I have here. Thanks to Rob and companions for the tests and sharing the plans.
