Nature’s gift of the day: an avian celebration featuring a dozen or more species, recorded in hardwood forest here in upstate New York. I’ve christened it Abundant Life, due to its rich variety of bird sounds. Close your eyes and listen. How many species can you identify?

Last night I camped out in Shindagin Hollow. I laid my super-comfy sleeping mat directly on the ground next to a small pond created by beaver. Rising promptly at 4:30am, I engaged my soundscape microphone and then captured a relaxing chorus of bird songs set against the gentle gurgle of water pouring over an old beaver dam …

Having posted an intimate recording of a Veery about a week ago (Very Veery), I found myself thinking about my all-time favorite recording of the species … a lone male singing in the rain at Cranberry Glades Botanical Area in the mountains of West Virginia.

Enjoy this relaxing soundscape that I recorded this morning while meditating along a stream in Shindagin Hollow. What a wonderful sermon I beheld in glorious solitude while resting quietly in the Cathedral of Nature, not far from town …

On this beautiful spring day, I have just one thing to say … I am so incredibly fortunate to live in an area where I can enjoy the bubbling “song-fantasias” of Bobolinks, ecstatic voices from another world! Enjoy this engaging recording of four males perched near one another, spouting songs like a fountain spraying water upwards and outwards, as if partaking in a festive reunion …

I delight in gathering sound portraits of species, with emphasis on depicting each bird dimensionally “in its habitat,” embedded within a pleasant mix of other nature sounds. Thus, you can imagine my delight when I encountered a Gray Catbird singing in a multiflora rose shrub next to the overflow of Ladyslipper Pond …

Sunday morning was breezy. I almost slept-in, but my inner voice would have nothing of it. By dawn, I was at a pothole pond in nearby Texas Hollow State Forest, recording wind in the hemlocks, along with the songs of four different songbirds and the loud honking of Canada Geese …

Rising once again at 4am, I rushed off to meet with my friend Melissa Groo, a talented wildlife photographer. We drove down into Shindagin Hollow then up again to a beautiful wet meadow at the edge of the forest, arriving art first light, just as the birds were beginning to sing …

I rose at 4 am this morning and drove to a remote location in the hills above Shindagin Hollow. Upon arriving, I set my soundscape microphone in the forest next to the road. Water trickled softly down a nearby drainage ditch. Otherwise it was completely quiet. Then the birds began to sing …