The Night Singers

An episode devoted entirely to the wonderful nocturnal world of bird vocalization. In the feature sound magazine, I start with an unforgettable night spent at Angarn Reserve, a recording session that was carried out completely under the cover of darkness. I visited the area in the hope of recording Spotted Crake, a well known nocturnally displaying species. This was a night that will live long in my memory as everything went according to plan. Spotted Crake were present in breathtaking numbers and their song strophes were ringing out all over the wetland. The darkness further revealed many other night singers. Join me as I talk you through an incredible night out in the field and share some quite incredible audio with you as I do so...
 Staying on the nocturnal theme, late summer and early autumn will soom be upon us and this is when my mind turns towards recording migration, once again. My second segment of the episode will detail some rather nice nocturnal audio from a host of nocturnally migrating species. All of the audio here has come from my Landsort listening station, a wonderful venue to record nocturnal migrants.
Join me for this carefully edited soundbite, a wonderful introduction into the world of the night singers...

00:01 Introduction to Wild Bird Acoustics

00:44 Exploring the Magic of Night Singing Birds

02:24 The advantages of Field Recording at Night

05:10 An unforgetable night at Angarn Reserve

06:07 Various recordings from the Reserve

07:22 A Nocturnal tour of Angarn Reserve

26:44  Nocmig Corner: Nocturnal Migration

28:00 Exploring the Sounds of Nocturnal Migration at Landsort

50:32 General discussion about Night Recording

52:57 Conclusion and Farewell

Transcript

   📍 Welcome once again to wild bird acoustics. I'm your host, Alan Dalton, and I'll be taking you on a journey into sound. 

Now, as usual, you're all very welcome folks. Welcome to wild bird acoustics once again, and we have a fantastic show lined up for you today. 

 It's the 1st of June, and where does time go? I've had an absolutely wonderful time outfield recording the last month, folks, and I have gathered a massive amount of audio over the spring, and going forward in the show,  in Season 2, I will be sharing that with you. 

Now, as I say, it's June,  And what I wanted to concentrate on in this episode is one of my favourite reserves and that place is called Angarn. Now I went out there a few years ago in the middle of the night and I spent the entire night field recording around the edge of the reserve.

And I have to tell you, it was one of the most fantastic experiences of my life. I just walked from one area to the next and everywhere I went, I just came across incredible night singing birds and I managed to get some incredible audio. So in many ways, this is going to focus on night singing birds and I really can't recommend highly enough how amazing it is to get out in the dead of night and sound record birds. There's a number of reasons for this. There's something about your senses being heightened in the dark,  when you're out there, there's nobody else around, you're on your own and to an extent really until your eyes are climatized you can be stumbling around a little bit but here in Sweden the amount of birds seeing at night is quite incredible and some wonderful species too, some specialist species  that you really have to get out at night to capture. 

 Now I love to get out at night and the first time I did so I think was in 2012 when I went to Sandarmar Reserve and I arrived just as it was getting dark and it's  and it is an experience that I remember to this day. There were things like Thrush Nightingale, Yctrian Warbler, Marsh Warbler singing 

and in the darkness, I was able to walk right up to these and it really opened my eyes to the possibilities of recording at night. Now, apart from the birds that sing and the specialist species that sing during the night, there are other massive advantages to field recording or getting out at night. One of these is how quiet it generally is.

Now, in the evening and night time, the temperatures are lower. and sound travels better and this is perhaps a reason why many species sing at night. Now there is another big plus humans are generally not around in the middle of the night and that is a massive plus for the sound recorder. There's  very little traffic once you get past midnight and into the early hours of the morning there will be very little or practically no noise in the countryside  you can get perfect sound free recordings, and I can't recommend highly enough that you give this a go.

If you are a field recorder,  it will allow you to make  wonderful recordings, not just the rare or scarce species, but also of the common species in the areas that you visit. 

 Now the best time to get out at night is probably late spring and through early summer and June is actually an excellent month to actually get out and record at night here in Sweden and quite often a lot of birds, very late arriving migrants, are most active in June. So species such as nightjar, marsh warbler and many others arrive quite late and if you want to capture these, the best time to go out is actually in June when the breeding season is in full swing. 

If you have a car, an excellent way to actually survey the countryside is at night and just,  and basically what you do is you just drive around on every few hundred meters, stop the car, roll down the window and listen intently. Most night singers sing constantly at night and if there's something close to the car or in the area, you will probably hear it straight away. 

 There are a wide range of species that sing at night, so the most obvious of them would be the thrush species  such as blackbird, red wing, song thrush. Now, other more interesting species also sing at night, so things like crakes, spotted crake, corn crake, little crake, locustella warblers, such as river warbler, grasshopper warbler, savvy's warbler, 

and many wetland species also are very prone to displaying at night.  Things like , gargony, Shoveler, all of these birds will display right through the night in early summer, when it's busy and when they are breeding.  It's a great time to get out into these habitats and I really recommend freshwater marshes and good wetland areas because at night they are often full of the sounds of singing and displaying birds. 

 Now, as promised in his first sound magazine, I'm going to take you to Angarn reserve. And I think the date for this was the 20th of May,  2022.  Now every now and then you have an extremely special recording session. And this is one of the best recording sessions I have ever had.

Every recording you hear in this next piece was recorded. in the same night and I got an incredible amount of high quality audio of some  wonderful species. It was just a very special night. I arrived when the sun was just going down and was getting dark and I left about an hour after dawn.

I didn't see anybody all night. I barely heard any traffic. There was no noise and everywhere I went, I was just bumping at the species, several of which I hadn't recorded before. Or I just hadn't had the opportunity to get a  really high quality recording of and recording at night in the dark allowed me to do so. 

It was quite incredible and I think the best thing to do is just play the sound magazine for you. Now, most of these recordings were recorded with a Talinga parabola, and one or two of them were recorded with my binaural array, which is a homemade array, which I basically made out of wood, silicone ears, and a pair of clippy EM.

272 microphones, and it's a  wonderful piece of kit for recording a night. Like I say, quite often you can walk right up to birds in the darkness. They're not in the least bothered by humans. I suspect they probably know you're there, but a lot of these birds are just so focused on displaying and attracting a mate or holding territory this time of the year that they just completely ignore you.

So it's a great time of the year to actually get a microphone close to singing birds and some species like marsh warbler, thrush nightingale. And others will use the same perch all night  that makes it  very easy for the recorder to get a microphone close and get a really nice long recording with no noise in the background.

And that's the key. So without further ado, we'll move on to the sound magazine now. This is recording at night at Angarn reserve in Sweden. 

  Angarn is a fantastic reserve. It's located inland north of Stockholm city and it's a freshwater reserve. It has some open water, a lot of reed beds and also short sedge habitat. It's easy to get around. There's a nice track and some boardwalks. It's well managed and at night there's absolutely nobody there.

I decided to go there on the 20th of May 22, and I'd left it a little bit late perhaps, but I wanted to make sure that all of the breeders were in position. Um, I was hoping, especially for a very special species, which was Spotted Creek.  Now Spotted Creek is exclusively a nighttime singer. It's quite a special bird.

It's quite secretive, very difficult to see, but at nighttime it displays constantly. And I knew that Angarn had a good track record for the species. There was over 20 males recorded there in 2021. So I knew that if I went in late May, there should be plenty of males to record. And as I approached, just as it was getting dark, it was quite incredible in the distance to hear several males calling already.

So it was very exciting as I approached the reserve. You know, there was spotted krait calling everywhere, just displaying. Um, most of them were in short sedge. And it was incredible just to sit there and listen and record. And the very first soundscape I took, I just let the recorder run, and you can hear that here. 

Well, an amazing soundscape there. I'd say I spotted a crake with common snipe and a few other birds in the background.  After I'd made that recording, I just decided to move around the reserve, slowly, just listening, seeing what I could pick up, and it wasn't long before I came across this sedge walker.

The bird was singing from a reed bed, it wasn't particularly close to the parabola, but it still made for a nice recording. Have a listen again. 

So 

after the side dwarbler, I just potted around the reserve, just seeing what would stop me, and nothing happened for a while. And as I moved further south, I came across this bed of irises, and it was getting very, very dark now, and suddenly, just suddenly out of nowhere, a corn crag began to display. And it was a really wonderful moment, you know, I'd always wanted to record this species, and here was one right in front of me.

So I was able to just set up the parabola and just get a really nice recording and sit back and listen to the scene. It was fantastic. I also managed a few binaural recordings and took a few soundscapes, but this is one of the better recordings of this bird. So this is quite a nice listen. So this is Corn Crake singing at night. 

Now after recording Corn Crake, I was on a bit of a high, so I just kept on going around the reserve and it wasn't long before I came across a Thrush Nightingale in full song. The bird was just buried in a thick cover and it was absolutely indifferent to my presence. For this recording, I took the binaural array and put it on a small gorilla pod and just walked straight up to the bird in the darkness it was completely unbothered by me and I got the mic.

Probably about two meters away from the board, I proceeded to get this incredible 20 minute recording of the bird singing. 

I don't know if you can see it, but there's a lot of birds in the background. 

I don't know. 

So that was a quite amazing experience to get so close to a thrush nightingale and just enjoy the song at point blank range. The recording, when I listened to it at home, was quite amazing. By far the best recording I have of this species and I was absolutely delighted with the result. But moving on It was still very, very dark at this point.

I just kept going north from there into a copse. And as I entered a small area of woodland, I got the fright of my life because road ear began to bark. It's quite a loud noise and the animals were quite close to my position, but it seemed like there was a few males involved. And as soon as I realized that this was likely to go on for a while,  I started to record.

And as I did so, a tawny owl started to call in the distance and the whole thing made for a lovely recording. 

I was moving around the reserve now and the sky was just beginning to get kind of a light blue before the sun came up and from across the wetland came the early morning dawn calls of Common Crane.  This is a beautiful, beautiful sound. It's, it's just one of those sounds for me that just typifies Sweden in the summer.

So here you have Common Crane dawn song. 

Close by the meadows were full of birds. Although the sun hadn't risen yet, quite a few birds were beginning to sing, and one of them was this male weaned chat. Now I couldn't see the bird at all. It was very close to my position, but it was beginning to sing just in the darkness, and it made for a wonderful, wonderful recording.

And again, this was by far the best recording I had of the species up until this point. So this is common weaned chat. 

Just a little while later the sun was starting to come up and the sounds were just incredible. Um, it wasn't proper darkness now, the sun was just poking its head over the horizon, but the soundscape was just incredible. Um, spotted crake were still displaying, common crane, corn crake,  then there were wind chat, it was just a fantastic scene.

And in actual fact I found a second male corn crake at the north of the reserve also singing.  I couldn't resist taking the soundscape of the entire scene, and this is what happens. 

So there's just some of the recordings I took that night, and I think it comes across that, you know, the quality of recordings you can get at night is quite amazing. Like I say, quite often during the day, you know, there is noise from people, dogs, machines, airplanes, and quite often you'll be recording a bird that's right in front of you and you'll just have to stop, um, because of some sort of noise.

And that tends not to happen at night, so I can strongly recommend to people just, if you haven't tried night recording, just get out there and give it a go. It's well worth the effort for me, you know, I like to pick a nice isolated location where I'm pretty sure there won't be anybody around, but you'd be very surprised even in fairly urban environments or parks close to town, you know, 1, 2, 3 in the morning, there's very few people around and at the very least, the whole soundscape is, is much better if you're getting out to a place like Angarnachorse, you're completely undisturbed and the sounds are just fantastic.

 So that's the sound magazine from the incredible Angarn Reserve, recorded a couple of years ago , on the 20th of May, 2022,  I think it comes across, you know, what an incredible evening that was. And it's one that will long live in my memory.

And like I say, if you have never tried it, do get out in the middle of the night and do a bit of wording, use your ears to identify what's singing.  It's quite an amazing experience. 

 Now, what have we got next for you? We're going to stay on the nocturnal theme, actually, folks.  What I have next for you is a Nocmig corner section. And as usual, that involves nocturnal migration. And in this sound magazine, we're going to listen to some random recordings from Landsort, just south of Stockholm, which is the site, as you will know by now, of my main listening station here in Sweden.

 As I mentioned before, I record there from The middle of March, roughly until the middle of November every year.  Currently I am right in the middle of my fourth year of recording. So there's quite a lot of audio in my archives from that site. And I have a lot to share with you. So what I'm going to do now is run through that sound magazine.

As always, I recommend wearing headphones for these folks, especially these nocturnal migration sections,  and sometimes the audio isn't fantastic, the board could be a little bit away, and headphones will greatly improve your ability to hear these calls.

So, wear headphones wherever you can, folks. 

This is Knockmeg Recording at Landsart. Just some random nocturnal recordings for you and a little bit of narration  explanation and discussion as I run my way through them. I hope you enjoy this folks.' 

 Now welcome everybody to Nockmig Corner once again, and in this section we delve into nocturnal migration at a couple of sites here in Sweden, and what I'm going to do for you now is run through some nice recordings taken over the last couple of years, 

and the first recording I have for you in this small section is Bartel Godwit, and this is quite a scarce species on the Baltic coast of Sweden at night, and I don't have a great deal of good recordings of the species. So it's very nice to get this recording. So this was recorded on the 15th of September, 2021 at Landsort in Sweden. 

So we'll get straight into it. This is Bartel Godwitt at Landsort, Sweden on the 15th of September,  2021. 

Now if anybody has done a bit of nocturnal recording in early autumn, this next species is probably one you are familiar with. It is common sandpiper. And beginning in early July, the species starts to go over here in Sweden in quite large numbers. And on a good night at the peak, probably around the end of July, you may get up to 30 birds passing in a night. 

As I say, it's a very typical knock mig call. Most of you who do a little bit of knock migging are probably very familiar with it. So I'll play that for you now. This is Common Sandpiper, quite a nice recording of a couple of birds going over on Landsort here in Sweden. 

Another wader species that is very prevalent at Landsort is Dunlun, and they often go over in small flocks. Now in this next recording, what you will hear is a small flock of Dunlun, quite a typical recording of a group going over the recorder in the dead of night. So, you'll hear the birds coming in the distance before passing right over the recorder.

This is Dunlun at Landsort. In Sweden. 

I'll move on now to late autumn and I'm going to play a recording of Fieldfare. And in this recording you will hear a sequence of calls from a passing Fieldfare in the middle of the night. Now Fieldfare is actually more of a diurnal migrant in general, but I do get quite decent numbers towards the end of October and especially in early November.

Also in this recording towards the end you will hear a single call. Of a missile thrush, which also is quite rare at night and I just get a handful of recordings of this species every year. That is at night. It's quite common diurnally at Landsort. And this was recorded on the 31st of October 2022 at Landsort in Sweden. 

Now, in 2021, I was very, very happy to be able to get a device onto the top of the lighthouse at the south tip of the island. Now, if I'm honest, it was a little bit disappointing when I got the audio and checked the results. As I actually found that whaler species in particular were passing in higher numbers over the observatory.

And I think maybe the birds are just crossing the island further north. But actually what did happen is I got a lot of very nice audio of passerines. And in many cases I think these were actually dazzled by the light. And in many cases certainly landed on the lighthouse in the middle of the night. And that's the case with this next recording.

This is a goldcrest, which is quite a scarce species at night on Landsarth, considering that the species is often present in hundreds or even thousands during the day. And I rarely get this call recorded at night. However, on the lighthouse, it was much more regular. So I'll play one recording now. This is a Goldcrest passing the lighthouse at Lansart on the 14th of September 2021. 

Now on occasion on the lighthouse in the middle of the night, Goldcrests were certainly present actually on the lighthouse, probably sitting on the rails calling. And probably stunned by the lights or attracted by the lights of the lighthouse. And this is probably quite regular at night at coastal locations where lighthouses are present.

But this is a very nice piece of audio and it's quite interesting to actually imagine these birds just moving around on the lighthouse in the middle of the night. So this is Goldcrest once again. This is recorded on the 12th of October. 2021  at Landsort in Sweden. 

I don't know if you can see it, but there's a bird in the background. It's a bird. It's a bird. It's a bird. It's a bird. It's a bird. It's a bird. It's a bird.  Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Okay. Yeah. 

So, if you're going to be using this, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, 

It's only  one print. 

Now it wasn't just Goldcrest, obviously recorded from the lighthouse, and I got a number of other nice recordings of various species, and one of those is this next recording of Golden Plover.  So once again, this is recorded from the lighthouse at Lanzert, and it was recorded on the 11th of September,  2021. 

One of the issues that I had on the lighthouse was that it was extremely exposed to wind. And at the time, I hadn't really perfected protecting my recorders from wind. And these days I actually have homemade mount boxes and I have special covers over these made of faux fur, and this really helps with wind protection. 

But nevertheless, on certain nights when it was rather still, I managed some lovely recordings from the lighthouse. And one of the nicest of these was this recording of Golden Plover.  So I'll play this for you now. This was actually recorded on the 12th of September, 2021 at 340 in the morning. Once again, this is Golden Plover at Landsort in Sweden. 

Now, quite often  calls can be very, very subtle at night,  and I don't want to give listeners the impression that all of the recordings you will make at night will be nice and clear and easily identified. So I'm going to play you this Lapland bunting recording now from Landsort. On the 14th of August 2021, just to illustrate what a more distant call can sound like. 

Now this call was easily identifiable by way of sonogram, and just by ear as well. It's a little bit distant, and in actual fact, it's pretty scarce on Landsart, but I have found a species much more regular further north at Vasturbotten, and no doubt in the future we will get onto those recordings. But for the moment, this is a Lapland bunting passing at Lansart in 2021. 

So that was a quite distant Lapland bunting. And later in the autumn, I get quite a lot of lapwing on occasion. And it's quite nice sometimes if you get a little bit of light rain, as this has the effect of dropping birds down lower in the sky. Quite often that leads to nice recordings. And that's the case here.

You've got a couple of lapwing going right over the recorder. Also in this recording you will hear a call of common blackbird. So this is recorded at Landsarth once again on the 3rd of November 2021 and  this is northern lapwing. 

Now one of the things about recording at night is that very very common species during the day can actually be very rarely picked up at night and meadow pip is one such species. Now it passes Lanzar to massive numbers during the day. It was actually surprisingly scarce at night. And when I do get them I often suspect that these are birds that have been caught out on migration and have ended up over the Baltic Sea at night and are just coming in off the sea during the hours of darkness.

So I'm going to run through a couple of quick recordings. They're quite short and both of these are recordings of Meadow Pippet. So the first one of those now, this was recorded on the 16th of October, 2021. 

So that is the first metal piper recording, and I'm going to play another one now straight away. This one recorded on the 30th of September, 2021. Also,  also at Landsorg in Sweden. 

I'm going to run through another species now that is very, very rare at night, but quite common during the day. And that is missile thrush. Now, over the last few years, I have found that Lansart is an excellent place for recording mistlethrush at night, and each year I probably get about five or six birds going over.

Now, obviously this is a very small number of birds compared to what goes over during the day, but I have actually talked to a number of other knockmakers, and it seems the species is genuinely very, very rare at night, so it's always quite nice to get a few calls of the species. Now, this first call was recorded on the 8th of October, 2021, and it's quite a nice clear recording of the rattling call of Misselthrush. 

And this just happens to be one of my favorite calls. So here we go. This is Misselthrush at Landsort in Sweden. 

Misselthrush actually have quite a long migration period. And I got them right through September, October and even into early November at Landsort. This next recording was recorded on the 2nd of November 2021, just before midnight.  Again, it's just a single rattle call from mistlethorch. 

It won't come as a great surprise to learn that most mistlethorch come on nights of good passage for thrush species, and that was the case here. And again, this was recorded on the 2nd of November, 2021, and in this recording you will first hear the call of a migrating blackbird overhead. Before the familiar rattle of missile thru. 

Now in this, the final recording of nocturnal missile thrush, you will first hear a red wing  before a missile. Thrush gives the first of three calls. Also, in this recording, you'll hear a single note of song thrush, and if you listen carefully, you may be able to pick that out here. So this is a final recording of Nocturnally migrating missile Thss at hort.

And this was recorded on the 8th of October, 2021. 

Now in the last few springs at Lansart, whilst I've been nocturnally recording migrants, quite often on the roof of the observatory, a wheat ear has been giving some song. And it's become quite a regular feature, possibly even the same bird over the last three years. But I just thought it'd be nice just to include some of these bits of song from northern wheat ears.

So I'm going to play you one now first.  This came at 3. 50 in the morning on the 7th of May  2022. And it's an organ wheeler, just giving a little bit of song on the roof of Bird Observatory at Landsort. 

Now that bird sounded like it was doing a little bit of mimicry, possibly of Eurasian Skylark. And Northern Wheater is actually an excellent mimic and it is a species I would really like to get a lot more audio of, particularly of singing males when they've just returned in the springtime. And hopefully in the future I will be able to do so.

But for now, I'm going to finish up with another recording of a male Northern Wheatear on the roof of the Bird Observatory at Lansart  and in this recording you will hear the bird giving mimicry of tree sparrow and also quite amazingly of common rosefinch. So I'm going to finish up with this. This is a nice little piece of audio of a Northern Wheatear just doing a little bit of mimicry in the middle of the night on the 12th of May 2022 at 1.

20 in the morning.  Once again, I'd like to thank you all for listening to this knock me corner section, and I really do hope you have enjoyed it once again 

So there you go folks. That was northern we'd hear singing on the roof of the bird observatory at night  And that bird is almost like an old friend at this stage. Like I say It's probably the same bird I've been listening to over the last three years whilst just going through my audio. And I just thought I'd include a few bits of song from the bird. 

So, like I said, we will wrap it up there, folks. And I do hope you enjoyed this Nocmig Corner section.  So, going forward, folks, I think we'll take Nocmig Corner just nice and informally. And just kind of breeze through it and just play some random recordings of nocturnally migrating birds. And maybe just have a bit of discussion about certain species, how they sound, or when it is that they actually peak on migration as they go over. 

Like I've mentioned before in previous episodes, Anybody can try this, you just need to leave a recorder out overnight on a balcony, in a back garden, on a rooftop, wherever you can really. And then you just go through the audio the next day and see what has actually flown over calling.  You can give this a go any time, but I recommend spring or autumn as this is when migration generally takes place.

And another little tip is overcast nights can be excellent. And nights with light rain can be even better. So weather conditions help sometimes. But generally speaking, you can just leave a recorder out anytime, just to find out what's passing by in the dead of night. Once again, thanks for listening folks, and we'll see you next time on Knock, Mig, Corner. 

 That wraps up another Nockmig Corner, folks. And once again, I hope you have enjoyed it and find it informative.  Now it's June and I'm very much looking forward to the next few weeks here in Sweden. It's a fantastic time to record.

And hopefully in July, I'll be getting up to Vasterbotten to do a little bit of recording and relaxing on the island. Once again, I'll be archiving all of the audio I get over the summer for future podcasts.  

 Now as I'm very busy over the next few weeks, I'm going to be burning the midnight oil here and I'm going to be working on the wild bird acoustics episodes for July overnight and try and get them pre uploaded as I'm going to be away for quite a bit of the summer 

 As always, I'd like to thank all of you, the listeners for tuning into us here at Wild Bird Acoustics. It's been a wonderful journey over the past few months.  If you do have holidays over the next few weeks, I hope you enjoy them very much. And once again, folks, I just encourage you, why not try and get out at night and do a bit of sound recording, or just get out and do a bit of boarding and see what you can hear.

in the darkness. Thanks again. That's all for me, your host Alan Dalton, and we'll see you next time here at Wild Bird Acoustics.

 So that brings us to the end of another episode of Wild Bird Acoustics, and I hope you've enjoyed it. As always, you can find us on YouTube by simply searching for Wild Bird Acoustics. We do have a mailing list also, and if you want to be part of that, folks, you can drop us an email at wildbirdacoustics at gmail.

com.  Now, all feedback is greatly received here at the podcast, and if you'd like the right review of the podcast. You can do so at the buzzsprout header page. In addition, if you'd like to make a small financial donation to the podcast, you can do so using the buy me a coffee button. And you'll find that also on the buzzsprout header page. 

We'll be back in a couple of weeks with more from Wild Bird Acoustics. Until then, take it easy, folks. And as always, don't be afraid to get out into the field and relax and just listen to the wildlife out there. Maybe even do a little bit of field recording of your own.  We'll talk to you soon, folks. Take it easy.

That's all from Wild Bird Acoustics.