It's a Wrap; The Season Finale

In the final episode of the opening season I begin with a lovely sound magazine of random recordings made here in Sweden, with some wonderful recordings of a wide range of species for the listener's to enjoy...
I talk a little about my thoughts for the upcoming second season, with a few thoughts on the direction of the podcast in the future as well as discussing the journey of the podcast to date.
A second sound magazine deals with nocturnal migration, before a third concrening diurnal migration is presented. Both of these detail vocalizations of migrating birds in the skies over Sweden, a subject that I am deeply interested in. I hope these will be informative and of practical use for enthusiasts of birders with an interest in this area.
Finally, I finish with a wonderful, long recording of a special species, a wonderfully atmospheric recording of very high quality, which I hope listeners will enjoy. 

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. 

 Now welcome everybody to oilbird acoustics. Once again, it is the final episode of season one and what a journey it has been.  It has gone by very, very quickly. And it's incredible thing that this is actually the end of the four season already. 

 Now we'll have a very busy episode for you. Lots of lovely audio to wrap up season one for you.  And we shall get into that. Very very shortly. 

 Now before I go any further, I want to thank all of the regular listeners of the podcast for tuning and over the four season. It's been quite wonderful to host the podcast. It's been a lot of work, but it's absolutely been worth it.  A lot of you out there have actually been in contact with me. , there's been some wonderful, wonderful messages. 



It's been very, very heartwarming trailers that some of the listeners have been encouraged to get out and stare at sound recording are good out into the field, or just appreciate the sounds of birds that little bit more. Just from listening to the podcast.  It's been very, very humbling to think that the podcast. Has actually made a difference to people out there to the listeners and that's been an absolutely marvelous result. 

So once again, thank you all for tuning in,  um, by sound my heartfelt thanks to all of you who did contact me, offering me feedback. 

And just generally encouraging me to keep going with the podcast. 

It's been a wonderful experience and I thank you all for that. 

Now in some ways, I suppose it's quite sad to get to the end of the four season  and there will be a break before season two starts naturally. I'm already working on season two, as I've mentioned in previous episodes.  And it should prove to be a much more polished affair, better microphones. 

Now, as I mentioned in the previous episode, I have gone out and purchased a pair of Sanhaiser eight. Oh, to all microphones and they have been absolutely incredible to date. And there will be a lot of audio with that setup in the next season. 

 How's regard season two, I'm probably going to aim for at the beginning of the new year, 2025. To kick off season two, I will keep you guys updated on social media. You can follow me on Twitter. Um, do I have to call her X now? I'm not sure.  Also you can keep an eye on my blog spot. That's plug birder. Dot Blogspot dot S a on everything will be updated there for you guys.  But generally speaking, if you keep an eye out here, apple sprout around the new year, probably new year's day, season two should kick off around them. 

 In addition, there is a chorus, a mailing list. That's at wild bird acoustics app, gmail.com. And if you're not already a part of that, you can just drop me a line and I will add you to the mailing list. And then you will get an update of everything that's going on. As we come closer to the second season. 

 Now I'll have a few months downtime before the season starts, and I'm going to use this to think about the second season in more detail. I've already decided that I want to do more things like features on certain species  but generally speaking, the sound magazines will continue. I do like that format. And it seems to be very, very popular. You can let me know if you want to hear more interviews. Um, I'm sure there will be a few more in season two. We just caught a couple Dawn in season one, unfortunately, but there were very, very well received and I can see from the viewing figures that they were indeed very, very popular. 

So perhaps more of that in season two. 

 To a large degree, rainy season two on its content will depend greatly on the audio that I managed to record  in 2024, and if I'm honest, you just don't know what you're going to get when you get into the field. 

So we will say what season two brings, 

but with the new Sanhaiser system, I do have, I have been concentrating on getting slightly longer recordings in general of certain key species on songsters. And the quality of days is quite exceptional. So that's something you definitely look forward to in season two,

I will, of course also be continuing with knock Meg and  Both of my active listening stations are still open running in 2024. And who knows what audio will be on them by the time season two comes around. 

 So let's look forward to and lots of work to be done here on my part. Just going through audio on editing audio for the following season. But. Enough of that. And I just want to get into our first sound magazine 

no one thought would it being the final episode? It might be good just to do a random selection of recording. So that's exactly what I did. So this first. Sound magazine for you is a random selection of recordings from here in Sweden. So I do hope you enjoy this. How about listen, folks? 

  Now welcome everybody to another sound magazine here at Wild Bird Acoustics. What I thought I would do for this one is just have a completely random sound magazine. So there's no theme to this one as such and I'll be jumping from location to location and species to species. And basically I've just picked out a few recordings that I thought you might all find.

Interesting. So over the years I've just picked up these sound recordings and going through my archives I just came across some of these and some of them are quite interesting and what I thought I would do was just put a small sound magazine together. So like I say we'll jump around a little bit and I'll talk you through each recording. 

Now the first recording concerns an apex predator of the bird world and that is Eurasian Eagle Owl. Several years ago, I spent a lot of time staking out a certain area where I knew there was a pair of Eagle Owl. And I was quite anxious just to see the birds as, at the time, I'd never seen the species before.

And after several visits, I had incredible views one evening when I just came across the male sitting out on top of the trees. And eventually it started to display. Now, it was very, very distant, and it's not the greatest recording in the world. But, to this day, it remains my only recording of Eurasian Eagle Owl.

So, I thought this would be worth playing for you.  blackbird alarming and some mallards, and they were much closer to the parabola than the actual bird itself. But in the distance here, you can hear the low, deep hoot of a male Eurasian Eagle Owl on territory. Have a listen. 

So there you have Eagle Owl, and it was an amazing experience to actually see these birds on territory. And the more visits I actually made to the area, the more I got used to their habits. And the male used to come in quite often, and it was always quite distant. But eventually it would fly across this area to an industrial estate, and that was when I got the best views of the bird in flight.

But one evening, as I say, I got incredible views and scope filling views of the bird. And it's just a fantastic memory. And I thought I'd just share that recording with you. 

Now, next up is another species that I've only recorded on one or two occasions, and that is shorelark.  Now, shorelark is a very scarce species on passage here in Sweden. And several years ago, I was down on a land art in October, and it was one of those magical days where everything just happened. And I remember finding Things like ringusel, yellow browed warbler, and overhead there was a lot of passage, there was a woodlark going over, and I had a couple of shorelark going over on passage, and later in the morning I came across a couple of birds on the ground, and they were just giving some really quiet calls.

Now again, it's not the greatest recording in the world, these birds are generally very, very quiet on the ground, but I was delighted to get the call of this species. So this is shorelark feeding on the ground. at Landsort in Sweden. Have a listen to this folks. 

So very subtle calls there from shorelark also known as horned lark and it really is a call that you should probably learn.  I took the trouble to learn this call several years ago  and it's one of those species that's not common anywhere. It's well worth learning the call and that may help you to find one of these scarce larks at some point in the future if you're out boarding.

I 

have a common species for you next, and that is Common Kestrel. And in 2021, I went up to Halligarn in Vastabotten and was delighted to find that a pair of Kestrel were breeding on the island, and that allowed me to get a little bit of audio. Now I don't have a great deal of audio of Kestrel, so I was very happy to get this.

So I'll play it for you now straight away. This is an adult Kestrel coming in to feed some juveniles on the island in late July 2021.  Have a listen. 

Quite often, you don't actually have to go too far from home to get some nice recordings. And, like most borders, I keep a back garden list. And, I've been living now in Stockholm in my apartment for the last, I think, 22 years. And, we live right in the middle of the city in Södermalm. There's a little kind of enclosed back garden area in the middle of all the apartments.

So basically, it's just a squared off area. inside some apartments and there's some nice vegetation, trees, nothing actually native, I don't think. But every now and then, especially in the spring and the autumn, we get an interesting bird. And by interesting, I don't mean necessarily very rare.  Something like a pile flycatcher in the spring would be notable. 

Now over the years I've done a little bit of knock mig over the garden, but when I actually record knock mig, I generally speaking leave the recorder to run into the early hours of the morning. And in that way I've actually added a lot of species to my back garden list. I think it's well over 100 species now at this stage.

Including some very oddball species, so regular knock mig species like water isle, moorhen, coot, waders, all that type of thing.  But the species I'm about to play you a recording of was most unexpected. And it occurred in May, about three years ago, I think it was 2022. I got up one morning, I was having a cup of tea, the window was open and I heard a very odd call through the window.

And at the time, I wasn't particularly familiar with the calls of this species, although its song was very, very familiar to me. So I spent a while just hanging out the window with binoculars, you know, what is that? And eventually the bird showed itself, and it was an Ichthorn Warbler. And I was absolutely delighted to get this in the back garden. 

A long story short, the bird stayed in the back garden for a couple of days, just passing through, but it was giving some nice calls. Now, this was a spring bird, so I'm not sure that these calls constitute anything useful that you might hear in the autumn, say, in Britain and Ireland. or in places where this bird is a rare vagrant or passage migrant. 

But it was quite interesting anyway to get these brief recordings of calls from the bird as it fed in a tree just outside my window. They're quite decent recordings and I'll play the first one for you now. So this is the call of Ichthorine Warbler. 

So that's the first recording and quickly I will play you another now. This is another call of Ichthorine Warbler in my back garden a couple of years ago. Have a listen. 

I have one more brief call for you. I'm just going to play it straight away. Once again, this is call of Ichorine Warbler. 

The next recording I have for you is that of Eurasian Tree Creeper. And I came across this bird a few years ago at Sandimar Reserve and I was just feeding around the base of the tree. I recorded this at extremely close range, and you can probably hear that in the recording. You can hear the bird actually moving around on the base of the tree trunk, moving back, and actually you can just hear the noise of his claws as it moves around on the tree.

But you can also hear these lovely, quiet contact calls. And this is one of the reasons I love sound recording. It just allows you to actually enter a new world and learn these very subtle calls. So I'll play the recording now. This is a wonderful little recording.  It's contact calls of a Eurasian treecreeper as it fades quietly. 

Now we're going to jump to a wading species and this is Little Ringed Plover.  Now Little Ringed Plover is a species I really wanted to record in 2021. At the time I didn't have any recordings of the species. And I made a special effort to get out and try and record the calls of the species when it returned in spring.

So the first recording I got was the Angarn Reserve and I'll play that for you first. And then I'll come back and play a second recording. 

Sometimes initially you're quite happy to get a recording of a species. And that was the courtship display of Little Ring Plover. And it was something that I really wanted to record at the time. But really it wasn't the best quality. Having decided not to give up on the species, I went to a place called Sabie Strand in Norrie, Arbifilthet, and a pair of Little Ring Plover had taken territory at the site. 

I was able to lay down my binaural recorder and get a really nice recording of the courtship display of this species.  Now this is a nice recording of the display of Little Ring Plover. It's quite a local breeding species here in Sweden. Not so easy to record, but with a bit of effort and a bit of time put in, I was able to get this.

So once again, very, very happy to get this recording and it's quite a nice sound.  This is the breeding display of little ringed plover at Norrie Arborfeltet in Sweden. 

Now I have another wetter species for you in display and that is common sandpiper. And I recorded this at Sandemare reserve in May, 2022.  Much going on here is three or four birds just getting display. They were newly arrived on the site and it was quite a nice soundscape.  So once again, this is common sandpiper in display at Sandamar Reserve in Sweden. 

Now, I guess the reserve is one of my favorite places to record. It's quite close to home and it's quite suitable for getting out in the evenings as a result. And the next recording you will hear is a nice recording of a large group of a wood sandpiper. Now, wood sandpiper is one of my favorite species.

It's just a wonderful sound. On this occasion I was just approaching the marsh when a large group of wood sandpiper who were probably just passing through on passage took off and made for a wonderful recording. So this is a large group of maybe 30 or 40 wood sandpipers just taking off and passing at the night on passage.

Have a listen to this. 

The next recording is quite subtle. I was actually recording Spotted Crake at the time in the hours of darkness at Augusta Reserve. I need to listen very carefully here. So you have the calls here of Spotted Crake in display and a few calls Northern Lapwing. If you listen very carefully, you will hear the low croaking call.

of Jack Snipe as it overflies the marsh. Have a very close listen to this. 

As I already mentioned, Augusta is one of my favorite venues to record birds, and when I heard that a Eurasian Bittern had turned up a couple of years ago, I made a great effort to go out and record the bird. I arrived just before darkness and spent a lot of time setting up my gear, and on this occasion, I decided not to use the Tlingit Prabhla bird.

as Eurasian Bittern actually calls on a very low frequency and parabolas tend not to do well with low frequencies. So what I did was I got as close as I could and set up my binaural recorder and eventually the bird started to display. Now it wasn't displaying very, very frenetically and I had to wait a long time to get a decent recording.

But today this is my best recording of a booming Eurasian Bittern and I was very, very happy with this recording.  It's quite a unique display sound in European terms and I just love this sound. So we'll have a listen to that now. This is a displaying or booming Eurasian Bittern, what I guess to reserve in Sweden. 

Now I hope you have enjoyed this kind of random selection of bird recordings in this sound magazine. The next one I have for you is a European Golden Plover. I recorded this bird at Sandimar Reserve in late May 2022 and it's a species that I generally record on SM4s or SM minis on nocturnal migration.

So it was quite nice to get a Tlingit Parabola recording of this species, a little bit higher quality. So, I'll play that for you now. This is an overflying bird in summer plumage in late May at Sandemeyer Reserve in Sweden. And it's quite a nice clear recording of the bird's call in flight. Have a listen. 

Now for the last recording I have for you in this sound magazine here at the Wild Bird Acoustics and it concerns a willow tit.  Now when I arrived on the island of Hallegern last year, that's 2023, it was quite apparent there was a crazy amount of willow tits around. And it seemed like there was a huge explosion of the species on the island in comparison to earlier years that I've been there recording. 

I'm not sure if they bred on the island. I'm not sure if there was some sort of eruption going on, but one thing was sure, there was a lot of birds around,  but whatever the reason was, I got some lovely passive recordings of the species. And I just thought that'd be a nice way to close out this town magazine.

So I'm going to play a nice recording now. I will outtest. on the island of Hallegern in Västerbotten in northern Sweden.  Have a listen to this. 

So there you go, that's a lovely recording of Willowtit at Hallegern in Västerbotten. There's some nice things in the background there like quiet calls of Blackbird, Redpaw and Bullfinch passing over on migration. I hope you've enjoyed this completely random kind of selection of audio. Various locations and various species.

Indeed, various times of the year, here in Sweden. I'm gonna leave it there folks. I'd like to thank you all for listening once again to Wild Bird Acoustics and we'll see you again next time.  Thanks for listening.

 Now, there you go, folks. And I do hope you enjoy that nice random selection. I have recordings. Now I've been thinking over the course of the last few weeks about the kind of a layout of season two and season one more or less followed the seasons. So I always started with the winter in the new year when the season the forest came out. And other work through spring, summer, and autumn, I generally tended to follow the seasons, but I think in season two, I might do away without a little bit. And , insert a little more randomness into the forum ops. So we don't have to really follow the seasons at all in season two. And I'm looking forward to that as it will break up the season a little bit better. It has been quite nice, I think to follow the seasons, um, I think it kind of wet sport is appetites as well for the upcoming spring. 

So no doubt coming into sort of spring 2025 and autumn 2025. I will be doing some special features. On those seasons. 

 Now, one of the big pluses of having a season behind me is my technical abilities. And my ability to actually put a podcast together has improved greatly. I did realize over the course of the season that I did really need to up my game with care. So I had to get a couple of these microphones for recording audio. 

And as you can probably hear in this final episode, it's going to sound a lot more polished in season two. So all of these magazines in this episode are quite reasons. And as you will hear in the next one, it can sound quite polished. I've actually got to the point as well, where I'm sourcing better background music for these sections. 

So things sound that little bit better for you as well. I, now I think I'm at the point where I can record these sound magazines and make them sound nice on. Clean and crisp. 

 Now as you will realize in season one,  I do very much like to monitor a nocturnal and migration and I have two listening stations. Um, perhaps I actually didn't get enough of that Dawn in seasoned bonds. So that's probably something to look out for season two as well. So next up, I'm actually going to give you a nice nutmeg sound magazine. 

So without any further ado,  this is a nice knock make sound magazine from here in Sweden on the audio has been collected over the last couple of years. At both of my listening stations. One of those is that lands Orton Sweden. The other is at Halligan and Vasta button, which is a lot further north along the coast of vaster button. 

Up towards the Arctic circle in Northern Sweden. And both have been absolutely wonderful locations. So next up this sound magazine is knock make in Sweden. 

And as always, I do hope you enjoy this. 

  Welcome back to Nocmig Corner folks and in this episode we will run through some more nocturnal migrant recordings. And the first recording I have for you in this section is once again Common Sandpiper. And this is a very short recording but actually a very nice clear recording of the nocturnal call of Common Sandpiper.

This was recorded at Hallegern in Västerbotten. So this is a nocturnal call of migrating common sandpiper. 

Next up I have two recordings for you of a very familiar species to most European birders and that is Eurasian Corlew. Now every spring I look forward to these birds passing and it is one of my favourite nocturnal calls.  Now, the first recording I'm going to play for you is a little bit shorter than the second and it's quite a nice recording of a passing curlew on spring migration and it was recorded in April 2021 at Landsort in Sweden.

We'll have a listen to that first. 

Now, a second recording of Eurasian Curlew for you as promised here. And this time it's a small group of birds and it's a longer recording. And it takes the birds a while to pass over the recorder on Landsort in Sweden on this occasion. So this was recorded on the 14th of April 2021. And it's a very nice recording of a group just kind of coming over in the distance.

You'll hear them approaching the recorder and then they take quite a while to pass. And it makes for just quite a nice bit of audio. So once again, this is Eurasian Curlew, nocturnal fly call at Landsort in Sweden. 

Now redwing is a species of thrush here in northern Sweden. And it's probably the most numerous species that are recorded at both of my sites here in Sweden.  Now, these birds pass in big numbers on occasion, and it's a very, very typical call of nocturnal bird migration.  Now, if you're recording birds at night, this will become a very familiar species to you.

So I thought I'd just take a run through the species and go through the main calls. So the first recording I'm going to play for you here, it's quite simple. It's very short, and it is just a nice recording from Vasterbotten in Sweden. of the typical nocturnal flight call of Red Wing. Have a listen. 

Another short recording now, also from Vastapotten, and you will hear a number of Red Wing calls. But listen carefully for the third call. It's a little bit unusual, and quite often Red Wing can sound a little bit odd.  Whilst most of them sound exactly the same, sometimes you get these aberrant calls, and I'm quite interested in them. 

So we'll play that for you now. This is a couple of Redwing calls, typical calls that is, followed by a little bit of an odd call.  Have a listen. 

Now another set of recordings here and first up you will hear a blackbird on migration followed by a few calls of redwing and once again there's quite an odd slightly explosive call here so these birds will keep you on your toes not all calls are identical and quite often birds will give slightly odd versions of what you might call their regular call and redwing can give you a bit of a headache at times So I just thought it'd be quite useful to let you know that these birds can vary a little bit on migration at night.

We'll have a listen to the recording now. 

Now even after a few years of monitoring nocturnal migration, I still get a lot of calls at night that leave me scratching my head. And it would be kind of remiss of me not to mention this, as it is completely normal to not identify all calls you will hear. And it can be quite difficult. You haven't seen the boards, you're going completely on audio, and it can be extremely difficult sometimes to actually identify every call.

And you will end up with folders full of what I call mystery files or UFOs, as I sometimes call them. And I have quite a number of folders of calls that I still have not identified.  So I'm going to play a switcher recording now. I think this is probably a Redwing. And I think it's probably giving some sort of an alarm call.

And actually, they don't just give their normal call in flight. On occasion, they will give kind of chuckles. and chatters and alarm calls, and that possibly is what I think this is.  If you have any idea what this is, folks, you can always send me a suggestion on wildbirdacoustics at gmail. com.  But again, I just wanted to actually share recordings like this just to let you know that you won't be able to identify everything.

But like I say, I think this is probably a Red Wing giving some sort of an alarm in flight at night.  This was recorded on the 19th of October 2022 at Hallegern in Västerbotten. 

Now the calls of Red Wing are frequently the soundscape of the autumn and on good nights for passage you can have thousands of birds go over and it just fills the sky with their calls. I'm going to play a recording now of a period of quite nice Red Wing passage over Landsort in Sweden. And, at this site, I tend to get the largest numbers of Red Wing, and it's not unusual at this site to top a thousand birds overnight.

And on occasion, this leads to a lovely soundscape. So you'll hear a longer recording now of Red Wing passage, and if you listen carefully, you'll be able to pick out the calls of another species, and that is Fieldfare. Have a listen for its double high note. So this is mainly Red Wing on passage, with the Fieldfare thrown in for good measure. 

Have a listen. 

Another species I get quite readily at night is reed bunting. And generally speaking, this species passes late in the night, actually towards the morning. And I suspect that these birds are just setting out on migration and probably leave sometime before dawn. It's quite a distinctive call and it is quite plentiful during the day, but nevertheless, quite scarce at night.

So I'll play that for you now. This is a nocturnally migrating reed bunting. at Landsort, Sweden in September  2022. 

Another very numerous species here in Sweden on nocturnal migration is European Robin. Now Robin is of course a very very familiar species in Europe to most birders and generally speaking you could call it one of the most common species in Europe.  Here in Sweden they're actually very much a migrant species and especially at Landsort I've had nights of excellent passage and upwards of 300 birds.

Now, the call is quite nondescript and can give some headaches, but once you get your head around it, it's quite distinctive. So I'm going to play a recording now of some Robins migrating over the recorder at Lansart in late September, 2021. 

As I just mentioned, Robin can pass in quite good numbers here, especially at my site at Lansart. And just to illustrate that, I'm going to play you a small recording now of a period of very good passage of European Robin. So, have a listen to this, this was an excellent night of passage at the end of September 2022 at Landsort in Sweden. 

Next up, I have a recording of Skylark for you, and Skylark is a regular nocturnal migrant, although I did expect bigger numbers of this species at both of my sites. It seems to be quite scarce here in Sweden at night, and I suspect it probably migrates mainly overland. It's quite a bumpy night as you can hear.

There's a bit of rain, but you can clearly hear a Skylark passing over the recorder. And this was recorded on the 4th of October,  2022. 

The next recording also comes from Landsort and it is another species, Common Snipe. And you will hear a couple of birds going past the recorder in the dead of night here. And also if you listen very, very carefully in the background, you will hear the nocturnal calls of several Common Black Bird overflying the recorder.

Once again, this was late October, 2022 at Landsort in Sweden. 

When you monitor nocturnal audio, it can be quite difficult sometimes when you're beginning. And I just wanted to play this section of audio just to kind of illustrate what it sounds like when a number of species are going overhead. So in this recording, you will hear a passage of thrushes. And to start with, you will hear first the calls of common blackbird.

And then later on, a couple of Redwing. But if you listen carefully, you will also hear the calls of another species. And it's a very nondescript, high pitched call. And that is the nocturnal call of Songthrush. It's one of the most prevalent species in autumn.  As I say, it's a very nondescript call. It's quite sharp and high. 

Once you learn how to identify it, it's very, very easy to pick up.  So once again, in an educational context, we'll have a listen to this. So here you have plenty of Blackbird, a handful of Redwing and quite a number of Songthrush. Have a listen to this, folks. 

Now, the next recording is of a favorite nocturnal species of mine, and it generally doesn't appear until November. And that species is Snowbunting. So this is a slightly longer recording once again. And again in the background you will hear things like Blackbird and Redwing going over. But the main focus here is on Snowbunting.

So have a listen for their rippling calls as well as their chew chew calls.  And once you've learned it, it's a very distinctive call once again. So this is Snowbunting at Landsort in early November. 2021. 

Snow Bunting is actually quite regular at LANs ort, and I was a little bit surprised actually by how regular they were, especially in November, and I can't resist playing. One more recording for you. This is a shorter recording, but it's a little bit closer and it's a nice recording of the rippling call of Snow bunting. 

Now when you begin to knock mig, it very much depends on your location, what country you live in, and every site is completely different. You'll get different species at every site at different times of the year.  And that's why you should really give it a go over your own house just to see what's going over.

Now, one of the species I was looking forward to recording here in Sweden was Wimbrel. And to give you a bit of context on this, it's very, very common in the British Isles. And there's a massive passage in spring.  So when I began to record here, I was looking forward to the species and I thought it would be fairly regular at night, but it hasn't actually proved the case.

I do get a small number of birds in the spring and again on return passage in the autumn. And these are birds that breed in Northern Europe as opposed to Iceland.  Now, I'll play a recording of Wimbrill here from Landsort in Sweden. It's not particularly close, but it's a very, very distinctive nocturnal call.

So this is Wimbrill, a species of wader. It's a close relative of Curlew, but a little bit scarcer. Like I say, a very distinctive call and one all nockmakers should be listening out for. 

I'm going to finish up with a favorite species of mine and that is Hooper Swan. This was recorded in October 2021 at Landsort in Sweden. And not a difficult species to identify at all. But nevertheless, very, very beautiful.  So just to finish up, this is Hooper Swan overflying the microphone at night at Landsort in Sweden. 

So there we go. That's a number of recordings of nocturnal migrants from both of my listening sites. here in Sweden. And once again, folks, I would encourage you to try this wherever you're living. It doesn't really matter if you're in an urban area, it can be quite surprising what's flying over your head. 

Now, as many nocturnal recordings can be quite short, I think I have to be careful with these knock, make corner sections that they don't become too information dense  and perhaps try not to stick too many recordings into each section.  Of course, it may evolve in the future. I'm not sure where all this is going to go.

And perhaps I will start to concentrate maybe on one or two species per section going forward. And in this manner, maybe it might be more educational as opposed to just mixing species together and maybe confusing the issue a little bit. But I do hope in short, you have enjoyed these sections so far. As always, you can let me know what you want to hear.

If you wish, you can send an email on wild bird acoustics. Transcripts at gmail. com. Once again, I'd like to thank all the listeners for listening to us here at Wild Bird Acoustics. It's been a pleasure putting these sections together, and I do hope they are informative and can help educate people and perhaps even encourage a few people to try a little bit of nocturnal migration monitoring. 

For now, that's all from Wild Bird Acoustics. And once again, thank you for listening. 

 Now, one of the things I have actually been thinking about quite a lot lately is going forward in the podcast and with various seasons. So season two, perhaps, um, for the reveal running at the season three, I may at some point run out of audio. And what I mean by that is when I first started the podcast, I had three or four years audio behind me, Archie. A little bit more than that. 

If I should have been recording for about 10 years. So I had a big pool of recordings to dip into, but as season two progresses, I think I'm going to have to do a lot more work just to keep up with the podcast. And rather than the Ashley try and squeeze inferior audio into seasons, I'm not, she rushed seasons. 

I will take the kind of requisite amount of times to make sure I can keep the quality of the podcast up. Um, Ashley, Kate, the quality of the audio quality toy. So going forward in the podcast, I have no plans to actually scrub the podcast at all. I just want to make sure that the quality of the audio going forward. It's noise and varied and also over reasonable standard. 

So that could possibly mean in the future. Larger breaks between seasons. So we'll see how that goes in the future, but it's just something I've been mulling over,  but I would like to say that I am committed to keeping the podcast running in the future. And I would like to stick to say 20 episodes per season as I go forward. So we'll see how that all goes in the future folks. 

 Now, one of the areas I don't see any shortage of audio with is Recordings and also visit make recordings. , I do run to visit mic stations and I also have a peppermint Naknek station on Lanzarote. And that's running again this year. So I will have plenty of audio for the next season or two from both of those stations. 

And I look forward to what she's saying, what Hashi Corp is there this year. So perhaps next year it will be plenty of nutmeg, I would imagine. And certainly a lot of vis MIG two.  Um, vis Meg is an already at the iReady really, really enjoys. So there's no fear that I'm not going to be on my usual locations in the autumn, just taking in the sounds of the boards as they pass overhead on migration. 

It's one of my great passions in life. Um, without a mind, I'm going to move on now to, or a third cell magazine of the episode. And that concerns vis MIG once again, here in Sweden. Um, but some lovely calls in here for you. 

Once again, this is the Make files here at wild. Board acoustics. 

 So now on Wild Board Acoustics, we are going to be dealing with VisMig again. And on this occasion, we're going to be on Landsort. And all of these recordings were taken in October 2022.  Now we're going to start with a very familiar late autumn species, and that is Brambling. And in this recording. You're going to hear the harsh calls and also the higher single note calls of Brambling as they pass overhead.

This recording was made with an SM mini recorder, as are all of the files on this small section. And as always, I recommend that you listen through headphones as it greatly improves the audio. So first up, you will hear Brambling, and in the background here, there's also a little bit of Blue Tit and also Northern Raven calling.

So first up, this is Brambling on the 29th of October  2022 at Landsort in Sweden. 

Now next up on Wild Bird Acoustics is the sound of visibly migrating a bullfinch, quite a nice call. It's a low plaintive kind of nasal call on the 20th of October 2022. It was quite a busy morning on the island. There was a lot of blackbirds and things like that grounded. But this is Eurasian bullfinch overflying the observatory in that morning.

Have a listen. 

Now, late autumn on Landsort is characterised mainly of finches on migration, and in this recording you will hear a bullfinch once again. Again, just the plain nasal whistles of the species, but there's a nice bonus species in this recording also, and that is twite, and you will hear their nasal grating calls as they fly over.

So this is quite a nice recording of two species. That's bullfinch and twite. We'll have a listen to that now. This was recorded at Landsart on the 30th of October, 2022, just before 8 o'clock in the morning. 

Now it was very nice to get recordings of overflying twite in late autumn as I didn't have an awful lot of recordings of the species. And I think I shared a couple more recordings of them as a result. So this is twite flying over Landsart on the 20th of October, 2022, just before 10 o'clock in the morning.

So this is quite a nice recording. There's a few blue tits and other birds in the background, but in general, it's quite clear. And you can hear the calls quite clearly, especially once again through headphones, which I recommend. So this is Twite flying over on visible migration at Landsort in Sweden. 

So another short recording now, and this is Twite once again. It's quite a nice recording, so I'll play this as well. They sound quite like Lynette when they fly over, but it's just a little bit more nasal and a little bit more grating. And although the shorter calls, fly calls, are quite difficult to tell apart from Linnet, when you get these grating calls, it makes it quite easy.

So with a little bit of practice, folks, you can learn these calls quite easily and sit out in the autumn and just listen to what's going overhead and identify the birds passing. And it's a really nice way to spend the morning watching visible migration, and I recommend it. Just find yourself a good location, perhaps somewhere on the coast, or sometimes just on high ground in a quiet area.

You'll get quite a lot of birds flying over in autumn. And they can be excellent places to record passing birds. So this is a short recording of twite once again. 

Now one of the most regular species in autumn on visible migration is chaffinch. And I'm going to play a recording now of a group of chaffinch slowly moving down the island. And they're giving their usual kind of pink calls and also the fly call, which is quite a quiet call. But it's very much a staple of autumn migration. 

Also in this recording there are a few brambling mixed in with the chaffinch. And you can listen now for their hard grading call, especially towards the start of this recording.  So this is Chaffinch at Landsort in Sweden on the 20th of September, 2022. 

Now another very prominent migrant species here in late autumn is Dunnock. And this species in some parts of Europe wouldn't be thought much of as a migrant species, but natural fact here in Sweden, all of the birds migrate out for the winter. And in late autumn you will hear their calls as they overfly coastal sites on migration.

And that's what you're going to hear now, just the triple and quadruple calls of a small group of dunnock flying around over the recorder. on Landsort in Sweden. This was made on the 18th of October, just before 7 AM in the morning. So we'll have a listen to that now. This is Dunnock at Landsort in Sweden. 

Now visible migration in autumn. Dunnock are a species that typically overflies at a fairly reasonable height. And sometimes you have to strain to hear the calls. And here's a pretty typical recording. And it just gives you an idea of. You know, when you're out listening to visible migration, or listening for visible migrants, rather, you sometimes have to be, you know, quite attentive and concentrate.

And here's a case in point. So first up in this recording, you will hear a reed bunting on migration followed by the typical calls of a migrating dunnock single bird. And this was taken on the 31st of October at 9. 30 a. m. 

Now next up here in Wild Bird Acoustics is a classic visible migration species. And that is Fieldfare. Now, this is a diurnally migrating thrush, and they go over here in very big numbers in the autumn. And most mornings, they'll fly over in small groups, calling as they go. Although it's a very common species, it's actually one of my favourite visible migration calls.

It's very distinctive, and they get this kind of chat, or chatter, as they go over. Quite harsh. But they also get these kind of high, whistling kind of notes, and they mix these in with the other calls. So, I'm going to play you now Fieldfare, Overflying, Landsart, on the 31st of October, 2022. And also in this recording, you will hear another species of thrush, which is also very, very common, and that is Redwing.

And quite often, these two species will mix together. So towards the end of the recording here, you will hear a few Redwing also. And they have this high ascending kind of nasal whistle, and it's a very, very distinctive call as well. So this is Field Fair followed by Red Wing on the 31st of October at Landsort at 7.

30am. 

Now the last recording I'm going to play for you in this short magazine on visible migration is that of grey wagtail. Now grey wagtail is actually a scarce species here in Sweden but they do migrate through in small numbers from Finland each autumn and it's one of the better birds you might get regularly on autumn migration and it was nice to actually get this recording of a bird flying over calling.

So Grey Wagtail is quite similar in sound to White Wagtail, and it takes a bit of practice to get used to these calls in order to identify them. But they can be identified. They usually give single, double, or possibly tri syllabic calls, but they're always higher pitched and more metallic than White Wagtail.

So we'll have a listen now to a Grey Wagtail on migration, and this was recorded on the 30th of October on Landsort at 8. 29am. 

So that was the VisMig files once again, and I hope you enjoyed this short sound magazine. The aim of the short magazines is more educational than anything else. Visible migration and watching visible migration is a fantastic pastime, and if you've never tried it, I really urge you to get out there and give it a go.

Like I say, you can find a nice spot on the coast or perhaps on higher ground and just sit quietly and listen and wait for birds to fly over. But far the best time to do this is early in the morning as that is when migration peaks. And generally speaking, on the average day, the first two to three hours are the best. 

Now in certain conditions, migration can continue all day, and on these big days it can be quite a spectacular scene, with birds flying overhead. And it's always good to learn the calls folks, and it will really help you sort out the birds. But I really recommend, like I say, give it a bash, get out there and see what's flying over your local area.

Just find a quiet spot if you can. Like I say, higher ground is good, coastal areas can be excellent. And if you ask local birders, quite often they will be quite well aware of the best spots locally for watching visible migration. So ask around if you're not sure where to go.  As I say, I hope you've enjoyed this small section and we'll move on now.

That was the VisMig files on wildbird acoustics once again and I hope you've enjoyed this folks. Thanks for listening. 

 Now, there you go, folks. That's pretty much. Yes. And once again, I'd like to thank you all for listening to season one. Of oil verticals, dicks. It's been a real roller coaster. It's been extremely enjoyable. Um, none of it would have been possible without you all the listeners. So thanks once again for that. Now before we go, I just want to give you a little teaser for next season. 

As I mentioned, I got a couple of much Sennheiser eight. Oh. Two hours and I've been using them now for quite a few weeks. And I just wanted to.  

Hi, I just wanted to play a single recording for you, which are recorded back in the early part of may. And it involves one of my favorite species. Throw should Nightingale. So, what you're going to hear is a Sanhaiser recording of a singing thrush Nightingale. And it was recorded at about three o'clock in the morning in pitch black. And overhead, you have some lovely sounds. 

Basically you have drumming common snipe. And also you have green Sandpiper and you can listen for days in the recording. In the background. So I'll just give you an idea of the kind of wonderful quality you get with these Sennheiser microphones. 

 Now, these microphones were very expensive and I did kind of agonize over quite long period over whether at the bottom. And it took a whole year of saving just to get these guys. And I was wondering, would it be worth it, but I have to say. Having worked with them now for a couple of months. I have absolutely no reservations about them. 

They're absolutely incredible. So I'm going to play you the recording. Now this is thrush Nightingale, and it's recorded at a place called August's reserve, which is just south of Stockholm city. Here in Sweden. So this is a bird, like I say, singing in the dead of night would come and snipe drumming on displaying as well as green Sandpiper in the background. 

 Now, this is a very long recording by far the longest. We'll play it on boil, poured acoustics to date, but seeing us it's the final episode of the season. I don't see any harm  in leaving it in there.  I think in total it's about 19 minutes long, but it really is a beautiful recording and it's full of atmosphere. 

And for once I didn't actually get the microphones. Right up against the board. And actually I'm starting to learn just to stand back a little bit. And that allows me to take in more of the background. So I'm going to leave you now with this lovely recording. As I say, of thrush Nightingale out of guests reserve in Sweden. We'll see you guys in season two. Um, once again, folks, thank you for listening.  

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 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 to write a 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.