Eastern Bluebird | The Music of Nature

Here are some video impressions of a pair of Eastern Bluebirds that I gathered on April 22 at Land Between the Lakes. This is not one of my best videos, but I decided to post it anyway. The soundtrack is a dawn ambience recorded at the same location. Enjoy!

> HD version.

This video illustrates a hard reality concerning capturing bird videos. Because long telephoto lenses are used and the microphone is next to the camera, it is impossible to record subtle sounds such as the fluttering of wings when a bird takes flight. Yet the telephoto lens makes it seem like you’re right next to the bird . . . so one expects to hear those intimate little sounds.

The solution? It’s called “foley” in the movie industry. The subtle sounds have to be added in post (in the studio). For this recording, I would be tempted to take wing flutter recorded under other circumstances and then synch those flutters to the video. I already have a small library of wing flutters that I intend to use in this way. The trick, of course, is to make the end product believable . . . it has to sound real or the audience will catch on.

SOUND RECORDING FROM 1988:

Now for a special treat. Here is my all time favorite recording of a singing bluebird. I made this recording in 1988 at none other than the Land Between the Lakes. I was on my very first recording trip with my friend Ted Mack. This was a lucky catch. It’s not dawn song, but just regular song . . . given strongly and jubilantly by a male perched on a dead stub in a swamp:

Song of an Eastern Bluebird. Recorded by Lang Elliott at Land Between the Lakes, Kentucky 17 May 1988, 7:30 am, during Lang’s first ever recording expedition.

I rose before dawn this morning (April 21) and drove to a location where I had heard a bluebird singing the evening before. Sure enough, at first light, he flew to the top of an oak tree and began singing excitedly, his dawn song, composed of bright slurred whistles punctuated by loud staccato outbursts of notes.

Joining him was a Chipping Sparrow, also singing his special dawn song, a lively series of rather brief metallic trills of variable length (his normal daytime trills generally last much longer). The timing of the Chipping Sparrow’s dawn song is likened by some to the intermittent firing of a machine gun.

Enjoy this lovely recording, a fingerprint of dawn here at Land Between the Lakes, Kentucky (also be sure to click on the thumbnail image to the left, so you can enjoy Marie Read’s beautiful photo).

Dawn songs of an Eastern Bluebird and a Chipping Sparrow. Recorded by Lang Elliott at Land Between the Lakes, Kentucky, April 21, 2010.

After the bluebird finished his performance, I wandered around a bit and noted the songs of several other birds that I hadn’t heard during the last couple of days:

Nashville Warbler, Brown Thrasher, Scarlet Tanager, Summer Tanager, Common Yellowthroat, Yellow Warbler. Perhaps too I forgot to mention birds I heard and recorded yesterday: Yellow-throated Warbler, Yellow-throated Vireo, Red-eyed Vireo, and no doubt more—there’s getting to be too many birds for me to keep track of!

Spring is rushing north like a tidal wave. If you’re a northerner, grab hold of a tree. Otherwise you may get knocked over when all the birds come crashing in.

Bluebird Impressions

Bluebird Dawn