Sound Thinking

On the morning of April 14th I sat down to analyse my first nocmig recording, using the amazing Audacity. My night's tally? One cat. It was not an auspicious beginning. Yet here we are, two months on, and wow! A Stone-curlew in the early hours of April 22nd was the final nail in the coffin of any reservations I might have had as to the wisdom of getting involved in this nocmig nonsense. Also Nightjar, twice. In the early days I would save every single interesting bird, and mostly still do. However, my collection of Barn Owl calls was growing so rapidly that I only keep exceptionally good ones now. Things are very slow at the moment though, and the list of what I have saved since the end of May is rather short. Four Moorhens, two nights of probable Little Egret, and...er...oh yes, Night Heron! Also these two...

First, a terrific Water Rail. I've recorded the species twice before, but just the short call each time. This example is a lot more colourful. Listening to it, I try and visualise the bird wafting around overhead somewhere in the dark, doing this...

And last night a Common Sandpiper flew over and called twice. In reality the calls were 26 seconds apart, so I've truncated things. What is a Common Sand doing down here so late? Or is it so early? Does this bird signal the tail end of spring, or the start of autumn?

And finally, a Barn Owl compilation, just because. All these were recorded just before 01:00 on June 9th. The usual Barn Owl shriek lasts about one second, and is just that - a fuzzy, white-noise shriek, like the first example in this lot. At least two birds are involved in this medley, and they are putting on a bit more of a show than usual...

Some nights I get nothing worth clipping and saving, but it doesn't put me off. I find the whole enterprise absolutely fascinating. A few blank nights won't make me give up. Basically, I'm hooked.


Today is June 15th. Heading out early this morning I expected nothing, and was not disappointed. That said, there's usually something to make an outing worthwhile. Today it was an Acrocephalus warbler. Not a scarce one, but an unusually showy one. A stream runs in to the sea at Freshwater Beach, and its lower reaches are thinly lined with reeds, in which you can often hear one or two Reed Warblers. Just after 06:00 this morning I actually saw one...

The very first rays of morning sun. There's still dew on the reeds.

Because of the recent Beer Head Blyth's Reed Warbler I now have a little folder of ID stuff tucked away in a recently dusted part of my brain, and could right now pull it out and tell you exactly why these photos depict a Reed Warbler, not a Marsh or Blyth's Reed. Not long ago, I couldn't. Sobering.