The Sounds of Summer; July in the Far North

In this episode, I take listeners on an auditory journey through the sounds of the bird world in midsummer Sweden. The podcast depicts the vivid acoustics of several bird species in their respective habitats, specifically during the month of June when many scarce species can be unearthed on breeding territory. Summer birding emphasizes the importance of recognizing bird sounds over visibility due to lush vegetation. Here, I explore habitats like wetlands, woodlands, and even urban spaces. Bird species featuring here include Collared Flycatcher, Great Reed Warbler, Marsh Warbler, Blyth's Reed Warbler, Red-breasted Flycatcher, European Nightjar, Spotted Redshank, and Little Gull, among others. I hope the podcast successfully immerses the audience into the tranquil wilderness of Sweden through the audio presented...
 Following a whistle stop tour of the areas around Stockholm, I will bring you north, to the peaceful island of Hällögern. Here, in July, I have spent hundreds of happy hours recording the soundscape in this remote and pristine landscape. It is a pleasure to record here and be able to share the sounds of Northern Sweden with you all here on Wild Bird Acoustics.

Transcript

  You're all very welcome to wild bird acoustics. I'm your host, Alan Dalton, and I'll be taking you on a journey into sound. 

 Once again, you're all very welcome to Wild Bird Acoustics, and it's great to be back, folks. We have a lovely show for you today, and it's just coming up to the mid summer period here in Sweden,  with that in mind, we have some lovely summer audio for you. 

 June is actually one of my favorite months to record here in Sweden. It's a time when birds are on territory and they're starting to sing  so here in Sweden you get quite a rush of early migrants and they settle in quite quickly. Many typical species such as white throated Tree Pippet. Rhineck, all that kind of thing.   We also get a second wave of later migrants and a lot of these species don't appear until the end of May.

And I'm talking about species such as Marsh Warbler, Blythe's Reed Warbler, River Warbler, and some other very scarce breeding species.  And every June I make an effort to track some of these down  and it's at that time of the year that you can actually come across some very special singing species. 

 Now what I decided to do was actually go through the last few years audio and pick out some memorable moments of species that I actually tracked down to field record in June.  And some of these constitute some very scarce breeding species here in Sweden.   I feel that June is very much an overlooked month in the birding calendar and it's a time when the birding can be absolutely fantastic. It's an excellent time for rare species and I would encourage birders actually to spend more time in the field in June. It's a great time to get into habitats especially wetland and woodland  and just listen carefully and see if you can pick anything up on territory.  Quite often these species turn up very late in the spring, perhaps in early June.  Some of these can be overshooting migrants that have overshot maybe from further east  quite often that's when you will make a discovery of a rare or scarce species, especially here in Sweden. 

 I do find in June that you rely quite a lot on your ability to recognize words by call or song. And that's because the vegetation is quite lush by June. , it's midsummer, everything is grown out.  Often there's quite a lot of secondary growth in woodland and a lot of the foliage is very dense and thick and quite often it's difficult to see species.

But if you actually pay attention to your calls and songs and learn them quite often, you can pick out some interesting birds. 

 So with that in mind, I decided to put the following sound magazine together. And basically what this is, is a collection of birds that I actually made special efforts to go and field record  over the summer period in the last few years. 

 So like I say, I hope this encourages a few birders just to get out in midsummer and have a listen. Basically anywhere can hold birds, but like I say, wetlands can be particularly good and any patch of woodland  any patch of scrub,  even sometimes in urban areas can hold birds 

 Now when I was putting this sound magazine together it struck me just how varied the habitats were and pretty much these recordings literally come from all over the place  so once again it just pays to get out there and visit different areas as many areas as possible maybe get mobile have a listen and see what is around in mid June 

 It's an excellent time to check out  your local patch and quite often birds that haven't actually bred and are looking for mates are moving around at this time of the year and you can get some very surprising records pretty much anywhere. Now without further ado we will get into the sound magazine.

This is a sound magazine of some rather special species from around the Stockholm area over the last few years in June. There's a lot of species here that haven't featured yet on the podcast and I do hope you enjoy this. Have a listen folks. 

  So I'm just going to do a small section now on what I would say are quite special birds. Either birds that I wanted to record for some time or birds that I made a special effort to go and record. Quite often these were trips just for that species and in some cases other birds were recorded along the way but generally speaking I went for the bird, I recorded the bird and I came back.

Quite often these birds can show up in areas where there's not much else and you just make the effort to go and see them if they're a little bit special or Perhaps it's a species you're interested in, or you just haven't recorded before, or it's just a little bit of a special species. So first up, we will go with a collared flycatcher.

So this bird turned up in a place called Snow Cetra, and it turned up quite close to a residential area, so it was a little bit awkward. And in actual fact, I had to go twice to record the bird properly. On the first occasion I went, I couldn't pin it down. I seen it very briefly, but it wasn't singing, it was late in the afternoon.

And what I did was I recorded it two days later, early in the morning on my return. I figured it was the wrong time of the day and I came back early in the morning. And at that point, the bird had moved slightly and was singing constantly. And I was able to get a reasonable recording of it. And you can listen to that now.

So this is an adult male coloured flycatcher in song. 

So next up, I'll skip to great reed warbler. And this was a species I just hadn't recorded before. It's not terribly common around Stockholm and when this bird turned up I decided to go for it but although it wasn't particularly, it wasn't exactly in full song but I did manage to get a few bits and pieces of it, um, I thought I would include it in this section.

The bird was around a lake in Valentuna which is north of Stockholm and I went there once again early in the morning and grabbed What audio it could of it.  Like I say, it wasn't terribly active and it was just giving some small calls. So this is recording one of Great Reed Warbler. 

So as you can hear, it wasn't really in full song, but it did get a few bits and pieces. So there is another recording here, and this is also Great Reed Warbler. So this is the second recording I made on the same day. 

Now, a very special species for me is Marsh Warbler, and  I make several trips every year to go and record these guys, or at least listen to them. Um, for me, they're the absolute number one mimic, probably the most accomplished songster in Europe, and I never tired of them. So this year wasn't a great year for them around Stockholm.

They didn't return to Sandenmar this year which was a bit worrying and I thought maybe I wouldn't connect with one this summer at all. But then I heard about a few miles that had turned up north of Stockholm and I decided to make the trip up one night and what follows are night recordings. Um So this is Marsh Warbler.

This bird was singing, it was a little bit awkward to approach, but it was singing from a dense area of dry reed, and you can have a listen to this now. This is Marsh Warbler. I'll leave this on for about a minute and a half, two minutes. 

So that was Marsh Warbler singing at night, and I may return to that species a little bit later on, as I have a few more recordings to share. Now quite close to Marsh Warbler is Blood's Reed Warbler. And again, I didn't think I was going to connect with one this year. And then one turned up in late June at an industrial estate in Akalla in Sweden, just in the suburbs of Stockholm City.

And it's not unusual for that species to do that, to turn up in fairly urban areas in small stands of willow and vegetation. And they can turn up anywhere really. I've seen them in some strange places over the years. But this bird really was in a pretty urban built up industrial estate. Although there was a very nice stand of vegetation there.

And I decided the best thing to do was get out as early as possible and arrive just before 6 a. m. And managed to make this recording in a fairly busy area. And I was pretty happy with it because there's not too much background noise. So this is Blythe's Reed Warbler and you can compare that with Marsh Warbler.

Which was the one previous.  Have a listen. 

So back to Flycatchers now, and this time it's Red breasted Flycatcher. And Red breasted Flycatcher is a species I had recorded before. But in actual fact, I had either only recorded the passage called The Rattle, or a second calendar male's song. And second calendar males don't actually sing as well as adult males.

So when I heard there was an adult male on territory in Stockholm last year in June, I decided to make the trip. Now This bird was in a fairly busy urban park. So again, it was necessary to go very, very early in the morning. And although there was a little bit of noise from a nearby road, I managed to get a really nice recording of this bird. 

So this is a red breasted flycatcher, an adult male. 

So quite a distinctive song that one, um, I actually got a recording of Pied Flycatcher on the same day. Um, we'll compare that now. This is actually a second calendar year board, which was quite close. But this is Pied Flycatcher from the same location in Haga Park in Sweden  last June. 

So next up is a very special species, which I had never recorded until last summer. And it was a species I desperately wanted to record, and that is nightjar. Now, nightjar is fairly widespread in Sweden, but quite scarce at the same time. Um, you have to get it to the right habitat, and I had to make a bit of an effort this year to get into the right habitat to record these birds.

I got a good location off a friend and made the trip out one evening and stayed most of the night.  It didn't take me long to find the birds, and it was really, it was quite an incredible experience actually, when I did find them. There was two pairs present, and at one point, just as it was getting dark, the birds were just flapping around my head, sitting out perch, chewing, they were wing clapping all around me.

It was quite incredible, and What we'll do first is, I got a nice recording of the Turing of a, so this is an adult male in Turing display. So this is Nightshare. 

So Nightshare have other calls apart from the display Turing, and one of the calls I wanted to get was the Kwik call. It can be a little bit difficult to get I believe, but the words were actually giving it on this night, and I was quite lucky to get a nice recording of it. So here you have the shorter Kwik call of Nightshare. 

So as if all that wasn't enough, I also got a wonderful recording of a wing clapping male. So this is a rather short recording, but it's, it's quite amazing. Have a listen to this. So this is an adult male Nigerian full display. And what they do is they clap their wings over their body and it's, it's a quite amazing noise.

So this is wing clapping display of Niger. 

So we're almost done now on the stuff that I chased around last summer. And I think I'll go back to Marsh Warbler for this last recording. So this is a bird which I recorded a few years ago at almost point blank range with the Tlingit Brabula at Sandimar Reserve. And the bird was recorded in the dead of night in pitch darkness at a range of about three or four meters.

I just set up the Brabula, put it on a tripod and sat back and listened. And it was the most remarkable experience to hear this bird just go through its repertoire of mimicry. There's so many species in here. So. This is Marsh Orbiter singing at night in Full display at Sand Damar Reserve. 

yam yam yam yam yam yammmm ting ting ting ting ting ting ting ting ting yam, yami langrang 

 So there you go folks some lovely audio in there  I was actually very nice for me personally, just to listen to that again. I think I put that cell magazine together over a year ago.

And at the time I was actually using a small lav mic, which kind of affected the vocals there a little bit. But I think it's perfectly okay. And like I say, I did have a lot of these older cell magazines to actually use.  I think it would be a shame not to actually use them. And I really don't have the time to go back and master them all again. 

 A lot of these sound magazines  were quite early efforts and at the time I didn't know a great deal about editing  and how to go about getting the best possible vocals for these sound magazines.

 The upside is that the field recordings themselves are quite nice quality and I'm very happy with them. So they really are the most important thing for me as it is an audio based podcast and it is the field recordings I do want to actually concentrate on.  

 It's quite easy for me to be actually very self critical now, now that I know a bit more about all this kind of thing, but I don't want to be too hard on myself and it's the first season of the podcast and all of these things, , all of these improvements will manifest themselves the further into the podcast, I get.  

In that regard, I'm very, very happy. I've learned an awful lot and I know that going forward, everything is going to be a little more professional and slick.  You learn as you go along folks, and that's just the way things are in life sometimes. So we'll move along now to the next sound magazine. 

 Now this podcast episode will publish in the middle of June and that means we are not far away from July and that's the time of the year when my thoughts begin to turn to northern Sweden  and in particular Hallegern in Västerbotten. Now I've spent a massive amount of time up there over the last few years and I've done an awful lot of field recording there 

 

And July is a time when a lot of that activity has actually taken place. So with that in mind, I want to play for you now a sound magazine from Hallagern in Vasterbotten. 

And that is basically centred around the period of late summer, which is a fantastic time to be on the island. There's some quite interesting breeding species. There's an arctic tern colony, there's a breeding velvet scouter,   waders such as green shank and wood sandpiper green sandpiper also breed in the area common crayon there's so much going on and then late july also sees a lot of return passage  and that's the time when you can get some fantastic species  as little gull and returning waders  

 Of the things I've learned here at the podcast is maybe less talk and more action,  and I don't want to talk too much about these species,  I would rather let the audio recordings actually speak for themselves. So without further ado, we'll get stuck into our second sound magazine of the episode, and that is July at Hallagern in Vasterbotten. 

  Now welcome to Wild Bird Acoustics once again folks and in this small sound magazine I am going to be talking about Hallegern, northern Sweden in July. And in 2022 I spent three weeks on the island and it was absolutely incredible. There was so much to record, so little noise pollution. I came away with so much good audio, it was incredible.

And I'm going to share some of that with you and let you into a few secrets of how I actually gained the audio as well. How it was recorded in the field.  Now on arrival on the island, the first thing I noticed was that there were a massive amount of brambling on the island. These finches were just everywhere, mostly juvenile birds.

And on the very first evening I decided to stick the binaural recorder. Right out into the forest and just leave it there for a few hours and see what kind of audio I got. So this is pretty much the very first recording I took on the very first evening on the islands. And this is Feeding Ling in Spruce Trees at Halligan in Northern Sweden. 

Yeah. 

So, the next day I was up bright and early, had a look around the island, and I discovered that once again, Caspian Tern had bred on the island. In the evening, I left out my binaural recorder, and sure enough, as I was expecting, having been there for a few years before, the bird was just flying around after the parents, begging for food.

And what you will hear in this recording is a juvenile Caspian Tern, and then you'll hear the raucous calls of the adult, almost like a grey heron.  The adult is actually fishing and the juvenile is following her around begging for food. And I think this makes for a wonderful little sales team. So I hope you enjoy this one.

So this is Caspian Terns and Hooper Swans. 

Now right through the month of July there was a singing cult hit just behind the stuga. And this cult hit was singing incessantly through the month. And I got some lovely recordings of it, but this is actually one of my favourites. Pretty much due to the background of Common Crane's. And Common Crane quite often in the evening give this trumpeting call.

We have a pair close to the islands and you will hear them in the evenings and at dawn. Just giving these lovely bugling long calls.  So, here's a nice soundscape, again with binaural recorder. This is Cold Hit in song with Common Crane. 

Now on the evening breaks in Hallegarn, it's wonderful, the sun starts to drop and a typical sound is that of common sandpiper. And it was something I really wanted to get a nice recording of. I actually got quite a lot of audio of this species. And this is pretty typical of what I got. Now again, quite often when you're a field recorder, pay is to actually just watch the birds for a while over a couple of evenings.

And just kind of see what they're up to, where they tend to be, where they're displaying, where they're most vocal. And then you can place your recorder in the field in likely areas, and just let the recorder do the work. And that's what I did once again with the binaural recorder. So out it went into a flat area of rock, and sure enough that evening, the birds came in.

It's just a fantastic sound, and it's so typical of northern Sweden. Just a beautiful harmonic effect of singing common sandpiper. 

Now the next recording is of Don calling cranes. It just makes for a wonderful soundscape. In the background here, there's quite a lot going on. Got Eurasian siskin, some mallard, crossbills flying over, arctic tern as always, the red breasted merganser at one stage flies in calling, hooded crow, great spotted woodpecker, blue tit and common gull, all coming on the island in the summer.

So pretty much what I'm trying to do here folks is just put together a nice binaural soundscape magazine of the island and the typical sounds of the summer, which are absolutely wonderful. There's so little background noise in this area. It's just. Perfect place to record and I really hope you enjoy these recordings and I say just lie back and relax and listen to them and as always wear the pair of headphones because it really improves the experience.

I hope you enjoy this one. So this is Common Crane Dawn Chorus. 

Now, in July 2022, I discovered that a pair of hobby had bred on one of the nearby islands. They were quite distant. I was quite tempted to actually row over to the nearby island, but actually what happened was, when the birds fledged, the juveniles moved on to the island, and they spent a few days being fed by the parents.

So the parents would go out and hunt and return to the juveniles, and then the juveniles, on their return, would be quite vocal.  So again, it was quite simple just to leave out the recorder in the forest and just wait.  I got some wonderful recordings of this species. Now a northern hobby is a small Eurasian falcon and it's quite difficult to record.

They're not terribly vocal at the best of times. So as I say, I was absolutely over the moon to get this recording. And in the background here you will hear the tech calls. A lesser white throat and I think it provides a really nice backdrop to this recording. So this is Geovenile Hobby calling in spruce forest at Hallegern in northern Sweden. 

Now, perhaps my absolute favorite sound of Northern Sweden is the following, and that is adult little gull.  Now, 2022 was a wonderful year for the species. There was a lot of birds around. And, apart from just having 20 or 30 adults in the area, I was absolutely over the moon to discover that the birds had actually bred on the island.

At least two pairs. One weekday evening, I just took the boat out, and I put the recorder in the bow of the boat. And just slowly rolled around and the birds were calling all the time and I got some wonderful, wonderful audio. So this is a real iconic sound of northern Sweden. And difficult to record elsewhere.

This is Adelittle gull calling, and in the background, as always, Arctic tern. 

Now a common wading species around Europe is Eurasian Oystercatcher. And for a lot of European birders, they'll be familiar with their calls in winter. They do this absolutely wonderful display in the summer on the bridging grounds. And I was very keen to record it. And once again, it was just a matter of just getting out into the field.

Checking out the birds in the evening and seeing what was going on. And I found that the male bird was quite mobile, but it was returning to one or two areas repeatedly. And that's where I decided to leave my recorder. So once again, this is a passive recording. And again, you don't always have to be on top of the bird.

And a natural fact sometimes, it's better to leave the recorder out when you're not there. As you get more natural audio.  So here's a case in point. This is a displaying male oyster catcher. As always in the background, Arctic Tern. This is a particularly nice recording and I really hope you enjoy it. 

Now dawn comes really early on Aligarn. You have to get up at about 2 o'clock in the morning. It really is the land of the midnight sun, but it's well worth the effort. And one of the sounds you will hear at dawn is a red throated diver.  Now these birds don't breed on the island, they breed inland on small lakes.

But in the morning they fly out to sea, and as they do so, they call all of the time. So this is red throated divers flying out to sea to feed. They're a little bit distant, it's a binaural recording. And in the background here you will hear wood sandpiper and arctic tern. So have a listen to this folks. 

Now as a birder I love waders and one of my absolute favorite species is spotted red chink and they have a wonderful call. Now I have spent a couple of years really trying to nail these birds down. They can be a little bit scarce in some years but 2022 there were several birds on the island in several days and although it took a little bit of time there's an area of flooded meadow in the north of the island and I knew if I left the recorder out just for enough time that eventually I would probably get a good recording.

And that's what happened on this occasion. So once again, it's all about letting the recorder do the work. And what happened was, a couple of passage birds came in, landed and started to feed close to the recorder, and they were calling constantly in the evening. So this makes for a wonderful, wonderful recording.

And I was very happy to get this. So this is the result of quite a lot of hard work. It was a little bit windy on the evening in question but doesn't take away from the recording at all. And in the background you will hear Juvenile Arctic Tern, Common Redshank, White Wagtail  and Wood Sandpiper. So once again this is Spotted Redshank. 

at Hallegern in northern Sweden. 

So we're coming towards the end of the magazine now, and next up is a wildfowl species. Again, quite a common species in Europe, but probably more familiar to most birders as a winter species. But it breeds on the island every year, and there were several pairs in  2022. So this recording is of a female Tufted Duck giving call, close to the recorder, and in the background again you will hear Artie Cairn.

Now I think this bird was probably spooked by something. She seems nervous and possibly had a brood nearby. I'm not sure what was going on as it wasn't there. But this is Tufted Duck in call. at Hallegarn in Sweden. 

So folks, I hope you've enjoyed this small sound magazine. I'll wrap it up with this. This is wood sandpaper and green sandpaper calling in the evening at Hallegarn in northern Sweden. It's an absolute dream location to record birds. I hope you've enjoyed the magazine. 

 There you go, that's July on Hallegern in Västerbotten and it really is a different world up there I can tell you and I very much miss it every time I leave the island. It's not very nice to come back to the big smoke as it were here in Stockholm  if I had the resources, I would probably get up there in spring  and stay there right through until the end of autumn, pretty much every year.  I think it would be a fantastic project  just sound record all of the way through the entire spring, summer, and then autumn.

So maybe some year I will actually get around to doing that.  So that's one of my little dreams. It's on the bucket list, so to speak,  watch this space and we will see what happens in the future.  Now, once again, I want to thank you all listeners for tuning in to listen to us here at Wild Bird Acoustics.

 It's been quite a ride over the last six months or so. 

 And I'm very, very grateful to everybody for all the positive feedback and the messages I have received since starting the podcast.   Now we'll see you next time, folks. We'll see in a couple of weeks again on Wild Bird Acoustics.

,  take care of yourselves. 

 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.