Delayed Spring — A Podcast by Lang Elliott featuring nature sound recordings gathered from April 24 to May 1, 2018 in wild areas near Ithaca, New York. © Lang Elliott, musicofnature.com.
The great warbler migration is upon us here in Ithaca, on this fine warm day of May 3rd. But the ten days between my last blog post and today were not the greatest, weather-wise or bird-wise, with lots of cold days, freezing nights, rain and wind. It even snowed one afternoon!
Nonetheless, I gathered recordings of 21 species on four different days and I’ve put together this new podcast … Delayed Spring … to celebrate what I found. About twenty minutes long, the podcast features quite a number of deliciously spacious binaural soundscape recordings. So, if you listen with headphones or earbuds, you may very well think you’re out in nature with me, fully immersed in the 3D sound environment. Note that I’ve made a special effort to include long intervals where you just hear the sounds of nature, rather than me gabbing about it all.
What follows is a list of the 21 species featured, roughly in the order in which they are presented in my podcast: Wood Frog, Spring Peeper, Blue Jay, Whie-throated Sparrow, Swamp Sparrow, Black-capped Chickadee, Dark-eyed Junco, Louisiana Waterthrush, Hermit Thrush, Eastern Phoebe, Blue-headed Vireo, Yellow-bellied Sapsucker, Belted Kingfisher, Mallard, Yellow-rumped Warbler (I think), Eastern Towhee, Field Sparrow, Red-winged Blackbird, Downy Woodpecker, Northern Mockingbird, and American Toad.
I hope you enjoy the show! As always, please leave comments!
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It sure was a late Spring. Thank you for your ‘Delayed Spring ‘ pod cast,Lang. It is much better with ear buds. Love the Frogs , Sparrows, Red Winged Black Bird. Thank you again.
Beautiful. Utterly peaceful.
: >)
So much sublime music! I did not realize hermit thrushes could arrive that early. Thanks for another great narrative Lang. My mom moved to my town to a spot on the Assabet River and the sound of toad trills was filling her house the other day. I am so jealous.
Listening with headphones now. Wow!
Glad that you like it Chris! Toad trills are one of the most wonderful sounds of nature, at least in my mind … and especially if they are distant, providing a dreamy melodic backdrop for a soundscape.
Lang,
As always………an uplifting and calming delight to listen to –
both the bird songs and the water melodies.
Especially loved that final ‘trill……….’ – quite a thrill !
Thank you……. 🙂
“A thrill of the trill” … that pretty much sums up the voice of the American Toad!
Quick (premature) comment — I’ve just started listening to the track: Earbuds will not create true binaural perception if one considers the complexity of the outer ear canals. Use real headphones. Check out this The New York Times article from the Science page.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/06/science/ears-shape-hearing.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fscience&action=click&contentCollection=science®ion=rank&module=package&version=highlights&contentPlacement=7&pgtype=sectionfront
I hope links are OK. If this does not work, type “How the Shape of Your Ears Affects What You Hear New York Times” into a search page field.
Now I will shut up and go back to listening.
Thanks. Fabulous recordings, BTW. -NL
I presume you can see the attached photo below. Let me explain. If I can’t get out into the field early I have a habit of setting out my homemade stereo ambient sampling system (quasi-binaural) microphone on my back deck for a feed through my window and into my office. I listen with headphones when working at my desk or fill my living quarters with natural sound on the stereo system. Very cool late evenings as well for owl calls. Sadly, my backyard soundstage in the suburbs here is too polluted by road and aircraft noise to capture good recordings,… Read more »
Norm: I somehow missed this. Way cool for sure … I like your homemade SASS.
Yes, I saw that article. The truth is that the best way to record binaurally for one’s self would be to replicate one’s own head and ear structure, placing the mics deep inside and then using special earbuds that protrude deeply to the position where the mics were. But the resulting recording might not work well for someone else because of head-related issues. Use of headphones might result in “double processing” through the ear canal, which wouldn’t be a good thing. In actual practice, even rough approximations often work exceedingly well to create a wonderful spacious experience, even though up/down… Read more »
p.s. for this current podcast, I had a lot of trouble with distant traffic rumble, even though I was as far away from roads as I could get. So I had to process a lot of that out, using various tricks. The only time of the week I can get decent soundscapes here in upstate NY is Sat night and Sun morning. Otherwise, distant traffic and jet overflights prevent me from recording more than a few minutes of pristine material at most locations (even then, bass rumble is usually a problem).
Excellent!
did you listen with headphones?
wonderful!!! Love the sounds of spring. I think I heard a Baltimore Oriole this morning, but I didn’t see him. So glad it is finally acting like spring.
Can’t wait to hear/see an oriole. Plus I’m listening for wood thrushes and grosbeaks!
ohhh…I haven’t heard a wood thrush yet. They are one of my favorites! I saw a female grosbeak yesterday but no male yet. I haven’t heard a catbird yet either. I think they are a very neat bird.
our catbird is back, singing this morning outside our bedroom window
We saw a male oriole and grosbeak this morning!! Also saw a white-crowned sparrow. Haven’t seen one of those in a while.