An Interview with Bo Söderström

In this episode, I converse with an exceptionally talented and dedicated field recorder, Mr. Bo Soderström. As a field recorder, Bo spends a considerable amount of time in the wonderful wild habitats around Uppsala, Sweden. Here, in mature forest, expansive wetlands and various other locations, he has honed his craft to secure intimate recordings of the birdlife in these very special locations. Here in this this interview, Bo selflessly talks in depth about his own processes and shares some wonderful intimate recordings of the very highest quality. A true journey into sound and a wonderful glimpse into the quiet places he chooses to spend his time within. His immersive recordings will take you into the wilds of Sweden and lift the veil on some of the wonderful birdlife found here...

Transcript

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 You are 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 Wild Bird Acoustics, and I'm delighted to say we have a wonderful interview lined up for you today. Now, when I first came across this recorder's work on SoundCloud, I was absolutely gobsmacked. By the high quality of his recordings, and it's been a while. But finally, Bo Soderstrom has agreed to come onto the podcast and give an interview.

I won't say too much more. I'm just gonna get straight into the interview, and I do hope you guys enjoy this. This is an interview with Bo Soderstrom.

  



 Now welcome everybody to Wild Bird Acoustics, and I'm delighted to have another interview for you and equally delighted to have Mr. Bo Soderström in the studio to talk to us. Bo, you're very welcome to the podcast. 

Thank you very much. Nice to be here.

The first question I have for you, very, very simple. Have you always been interested in birding Bo? 

Hmm. I've always been interested in nature since very young age, , but in birds maybe since the age of. 12 when I bought my first bird ID book on sale. Since then, I've been mostly interested in birds, but also insects.

But, but yeah. 

And at what point in your life did you begin to actively field record birds? And how did that actually come about? 

From day one, from the age of 12 until now, so for 45 years and running, I've been, been taking field notes, , at first making field notes when I work kind of out and about in Sweden.

But for the last 20 years or so, say when I moved to this house in outside Uppsala, I've been making field notes mostly of local birds, kind of in my general area. Mm-hmm. And that's been really nice because I can go back to my field noses 20 years back and see, I can actually see the kind of climate change effects on birds and insects and other things during these 20 years.

So I, so I take detailed field notes from, from my local area. I've been working with, with birds professionally. My PhD work was on Red backed Shrike in, in semi-natural pastures in Sweden. 

Okay. 

And also on, on a kind of bird communities in, in semi-natural pastures. I've been surveying a lot of birds all around Uppland so it's been really nice.

Okay. Now listeners, are always very, very interested in sound equipment. What sound equipment do you generally use for active and passive recording? 

Actually, I've been selling off quite a lot of equipment lately because then, now I've found my, my go-to equipment for passive recording because it's kind of the thing I use mostly.

And what I use is the Zoom F three. Zoom F three together with Clippy microphones em two seventy two, the omni microphones. So I have three complete sets of these. Mm-hmm. And also I have this large diaphragm microphones for kind of semi passives recordings when I know that, for example, when I, it's on a, a Black Grouse lek or Capercaillie lek or close Owl Nest.

So I, I I, I tent nearby. Then I have the microphones, within maybe 10 meters from where I know that the birds will appear. And then of course I have this parabola as well for, for kind of active, , recording of birds,, together with a mixed pre three,, variant. So I have this this, electronic stereo parabola.

It's really nice to get a bit, a mixture because then you can mix in, in the field, you can mix what, what is in the kind of the parabola microphone and also the stereo microphone. That's really nice. 

Yep. You've, you've answered my next question. What recording methods do you use in the field?

So generally you prefer a passive recording as a general rule? 

Yeah. I think you get the best rec, the sound quality of the recordings and also because I leave them out for during summer for 24, maybe even 48 hours. And there's always kind of a time during,, the night between two and 3M mostly where you have no anthropogenic noise and you've got really, really nice recordings.

So, so. Yeah. I like passive recordings the best because I get the best recordings from that, actually. Yeah. 

Makes sense. I, I've discovered that myself, that the small hours, if you like, if you want to call it that in darkness, are, are the best time to be out. Yeah. Very quiet. Yeah. What are your favorite habitats to record in?

Or do you have one? 

Mm-hmm. 

It's very close to where I live. I, I live in a kind of, in nature reserve, very close to Uppsala, so it's maybe 50 minutes bike ride to the center of Uppsala. , And we have this nature reserve called Hogadalen Nåsten, and I record a lot, , in the forest area, Nåsten, , where I live, , and I get the best recordings when I really get to know an area 

Yeah.

In detail. So I know both the kind of the acoustics of the, of the area and also where to find birds, of course. Mm-hmm. So it's both Nåsten and then I've been a lot to a, a wolf territory. Northwest of  Uppsala  called Siggefora,  and that's also gonna a rather large forested landscape with lots of mires and lakes, et cetera.

That we have all the, the things I'm interested in. Black grow, you have Caprica Lake, you have many different owl species, et cetera. So it's kind of really wild area. So these are the kind of my favorite areas, forested areas. 

And are you most interested in sort of long form soundscapes now, or, 

yeah, I think so because because I like to listen to them by myself really during autumn and winter when there's nothing around.

I, I, I actually, it kind of, not to meditate, but I listen to them and see that there's a, there will come a spring next year as well. Yeah, so, so now even with the parabola, I try to make lot as long sound recordings as possible, even 5, 10, 15 minutes. , But it's often quite difficult to, to, to, to avoid lots of wind noise or, or cars passing in the, in the, in the, in the, in the distance, et cetera.

So, so, so it's but I try to make as long recordings as possible, really. 

Yeah. But you have handling noise as well, but it probably can be quite difficult just to hold it steady for a long period. 

Yeah. But I always, always, always use, tripod for the parabola as well in, in the field as well, because mm-hmm.

I've noticed that it's impossible to hold the parabola kind of steady without the kind of handing noise, as you say. 

Exactly. What would you say are the, the most difficult challenges with long soundscapes with recordings? 

Nothing really. I wouldn't say there's I don't see any kind of problems.

Of course you have it takes a while to, to go through the recordings. , So right now I, I put out three drop rigs last night in know the wolf territory because I want to know if there are pups this year. Mm-hmm. And three, three, recorders out for four, eight hours, takes a while to go through and in the computer, but that's kind of like Christmas for me because I really, it's so exciting going through the recordings.

Yeah, it's, it is really, really exciting. That's actually the best part of ev everything. 

Yeah. That moment, that moment when you realize you've got what you went for. It's fantastic. Exactly. 

Exactly. And of course there, there, there might be problems with, with wild animals, but, but so far I haven't had any recorders just being destroyed by, by mammals.

I'm mostly afraid of, of wild boars because they're everywhere. Wild boars and foxes, of course, they're inquisitive and curious about things. , The only problem I, I had so far is tits. Great. It's mostly that kind of go to the kind of the wind protection, the bubble bees of this morning at them.

Yeah, exactly. So that's the only problem I've had so far. Really? 

Yeah. I've actually had problems with boar, mostly boar. They seem to be the most, the ones most likely to move recorders. Yeah. Yeah. You know. Everything else seems to kind of have a sniff and maybe go away, I've had quite a few recorders, moved a meter or two 

uhhuh.

Okay. 

I, I always put back my recorders about 1.72, two meters above on the tree. And, and I tape tape the, the microphone. So on the, kind of like three years on, on the stems. And then I tried to put recorders on kind of a branch up. , So, so far I've, I've been lucky. I've had wolves actually sniffing out the recorders twice.

Going really close to the recorders sniffing, but, but, but not kind of taking them down. 

Now, how can listeners access your recordings online? I know you have SoundCloud, which is where I found your, your recordings initially. 

It's actually only SoundCloud. ,

so that's, that's where everything is. I think there is , 5 or 600 different recordings there. Right now I've been trying out band camp and, and YouTube as well. But, but nice. SoundCloud is convenient for me. 

Mm-hmm. 

I, I also been thinking about casino canto, but, but if few were kind of the rare recordings I've been thinking of using Uhto, but, but not yet.

Yeah. And do you make any, any real effort to conceal your equipment in the field? You just mentioned you're generally close by, so maybe you don't or, but if you're not in the area, what do you do? 

In the areas where I go, there are very few people. So, so, so what I do is kind of go out. Maybe 10 50 meters away from, from the road.

And then quite often, I, I take a few kind of spruce branches and conceal the recorder and, and the recorder is in its camouflage bag, so it's quite kind of concealed to start with, but mm-hmm. 

But 

if put out a few branches and that's about it, , because there's so few people where, where I go mostly.

And I haven't and haven't had any problems at all. 

Yeah. Now, I wanted to ask you about infrasound in, in birds. You seem to be quite interested, infrasound. Can you just talk a little bit about that? 

That's because I've become interested in infrasound because I've had really good recordings of Capercaillie, and cranes and, and Great Grey Owls, et cetera.

Where, where I know before where there would be. And then I, when listening to, to my recordings, I realized that there are lots of interesting information. Not really infrasound because it's not below 20 hertz, but, but around 30, 40, 50 hertz. I've, I, I've, I realized that for example, Capercaillie, it is known from, from, from lots of different scientific articles that they, that they have after the pop sound when they're diplaying the the Capercaillies have a really low, around 40 hertz kind of buzzing sounds, and you feel it more than you hear it.

Yeah. And, and for the Capercaillie, they think that that's one way of communicating over long distances. Because of course, low frequencies is travel much farther than, than. High frequencies. And also it could be kinda on a signal of the quality of the males. So, so the, the, maybe you, the further down you go, the more kind of competitive male you are.

So may maybe the females actually judge the males out of, how low can you go when it comes to the frequency? I, I don't know. But, but I've realized that even the, I've had a wonderful recording of two, two male cranes disputing over territory for, for a whole light. And they had really kind of low, low voices as well, which you don't hear normally, but, but you can hear it in, in these recordings.

So, so I think for forest birds that kind of quite dispersed in the landscape low frequency kind of voices might actually be a good way to. To communicate over longer distances. Yeah, I'm not, I'm sure. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. So, so I'm not sure about, but I find it interesting. Fascinating. 

Now you do some kayaking as well, which I find fascinating.

Kayaking and field recording. Can you tell us about your experiences recording, reed, bed species, especially just with a kayak? 

Yeah. I, I've been I've been every year I go to, to two different bases. One in clo close to Öresundsbro where you kind of go kayaking along a long a channel for about three or four kilometers.

And there are lots of Acrocephelus and Locustella Warblers along that channel. And also I go north of plant to to Lake Sorsjön, which is one of the best, it's a paradise actually for bird watchers, but especially since you can't go there without a kayak. Yeah. You can't see the place without a kay.

Surrounded 

by, completely surrounded by red beds. 

Exactly. And, and deciduous forests. So, so I put out either this Audio-Technica stereo microphone , in front of me about one meters in front of me on, on the, where I sit or the clipping microphones attached to that, to the canoe. And then when I hear something interesting, I go as close as I can.

And, and if you go by canoe, you can come very close to the birds, mostly within five meters, to a singing Blyth's Reed Warbler or, or a Little Crake in Lake Sorsjön. I've had like Little Crake for three out of four years, I've had Little Crake in Lake Sorsjön. And it's the only problem I've experienced is that you have to be, keep very, very still in the kind of, otherwise you can hear that my kind of stomach rumblings, et cetera.

So, yeah. So that's the only problem I see. But it's a wonderful way to come close to the birds. 

I was quite surprised when I discovered the same thing when you're sitting in a boat bird's tent to ignore you completely. Which exactly, really surprised me. 

Exactly. Yeah. 

Yeah. Next question.

On a more personal level getting back to your own recording, what species have you been working with over the course of this year? 2025? 

I've been actually taking a leave of absence from my, my ordinary work for during the whole of April and the whole of May. just to do field recordings. Mm-hmm. Just because I, I really enjoy making field recordings so much and not because of any kind of commercial and other reason.

, I've been out every day with decent weather for the whole of April and, and May, and I've had lots of, of interesting recordings, mostly because I've been so much out in the, in the wolf territory. I, I discovered five different nests of Great Gray Owls. So I've been following the Great Grey Owls for, for, for the whole season, really.

Until the, the, when the young fledged from their nests. That's been a amazing experience. Mm-hmm. Yeah. 

Do you have a favorite species that you look forward to every year coming back in particular, or are there a number? Yeah. Yeah. 

All, all the lekking birds, all, all like Capercaillie and Black Grouse every year.

And also, I, I am so owls, I'm, I'm into owls a lot, so, so I try to record owls as much as I can. So these are the ones I want to come back to. And of course, wolves. I've, I've, I've recorded, I've quite decent recordings of wolves, but I would want a, a wolf. Kinda howling into two meters away from my microphone.

Ideally. 

Yeah, exactly. 

Look, looking into the future, do you have any dream recording locations you'd like to get into? Or are you quite happy where you're right now? 

I would love to go. I, I got this advice from, from kin who has been with you before. 

Yeah. 

Go going to Lithuania, to the marshes, close to Kaliningrad to, to record aquatic warble and great snipes and corn, C Creeks, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

These kind of big wetland areas close to Kaliningrad. So at one point when I feel safe going, going close to Kaliningrad again, hopefully sometime I would like to go there and I also would like to go to Northern Sweden to record, Red Flanked Bluetail, Rustic Bunting et cetera. So, so that, that's, that, that's what I wanna do.

And the last regular question, if you like, I asked this to most of the guests actually, and it's, it's basically, what would you say field recording has, how has it enriched your boarding experience in general? 

A lot. Really. A lot. I, I've learned so much more about birds and especially I, I've been working with, with birds sounds for the kind of whole of my professional life, but I've, during the, during the last five years, but I'm trying, when I've been actively recording birds, I've learned, learned so much more about how many different calls that birds have, which I never realized before.

Really actually how how they can, can kind of vary and and lots of kind of new. Actually, I, I, I think I recorded quite a lot of kind of calls that have never been discussed before in literature of many different species. So, so I've been, I have a few friends, Teet for one, and then Johan Soderkrantz, so it's really good that kind of Id unknown bird species I've been, been discussing a lot.

So what, what could this be? What could that be, et cetera. So it's been really kind of exciting to, to learn, learn this new calls. 

And, and just one thing I picked up on there, how important is, is it for you to, you know, do groundwork before you put recorders down? I know, I know you're probably very familiar with some of the areas you're in, but it seems, I feel the same way.

It's quite important to actually know exactly what's going on in an area before you put mics down. That 

that's everything really. To get good recordings, you need, need to know the area. Really, really well. We, for, for, for the passive recordings as which I do mostly, and, and both acoustics on the general area.

I, I've realized that not only with the kayaking experience, but also when I'm out in the field, I try to find an area often close to water. And not only because birds kind of flock to water to drink, but also because the acoustics are really nice, very close to the water level. And I try to find areas where you have a backdrop, kind of a cliff or something in the behind me having kind of re reverberation of from the cliffs.

So the areas where I go to come back to very often, these are the, the places where I get the best recordings really. So, so it's, that's, that's everything really in passive recording. 

Yeah, I think so. We have a number of your wonderful recordings here, Bo. We're gonna run through them slowly and if it's okay, I'd ask you to just talk them through us or talk us through them as we go through.

The first recording I have that you've sent us is of black gross. So where was this recorded? 

In the middle of the Siggefora wolf territory. It's a place where I've been returning to quite often. It's in the, I think it was ninth, 9th of April in 2023 or four. And it's a very cold morning.

So there is several degrees minus in the mornings. You can hear the, the Black Grouse males going through the kind of the frosty, frosty grass in the morning. And, and I like this recording a lot because it's kind of a, a kind of whole scene. You can hear the males coming in. With the kind of the wing sounds when they try to go.

Yeah. So you, you can, yeah. It's a 

wonderful, it's a wonderful, wonderful recording with a lot of your recordings. You're, you're very close to the birds on it really shows and the recordings. I'll play it now. This is Black Grouse

  



  So that was Black Rose, an incredible recording and it's very, very apparent. You're incredibly close to the words or the, the microphones are, I should say. It's, it's quite wonderful. 

Yeah. I knew bef because I've been there several years exactly where the Black Cross would come in and, and display and I put out an Audi Technica stereo microphone in a kind of small pine inside the, the lacking area.

And you can actually, at one point you can hear one of the black gro almost landing on the microphone. Mm-hmm. 

Yeah. And beads are incredible. 

Yeah. And, and it's also a very nice time of year because you could hear. EE everything at that, I think it was in 2023. Yeah, it was 2023. And this was the day when, when spring arrived to plan, because you have all these migrating birds.

Well, you have the Mistle Thrushes, you have lots of Chaffinches, Bramblings Dunnocks, et cetera, passing by. And you can have Whooper Swans in the distance. You can have cranes and you have the ice rumbling kind legs farther away. So it's really nice. And also when you hear, when the females arrive to the scene, it kind of, everything breaks loose with among the males and they got get crazy.

So it's up 

the, up the ante as it were. It's a very nice ti it's a very nice time of the year before the later migrants get back. You get those lovely, pure soundscapes. Yeah. You know, those species. 

Yeah. And I think April is actually my favorite month of recording because, every bird species is so ecstatic.

Later on you have a kind of the, the tropical migrants coming in, in early May, but then it feels like almost the season is kind of winding down in, in the early May. Nowadays 

it gets very busy as well. It's, it's almost, in some ways, it's almost too busy. Mm-hmm. Yeah. I agree. I agree. We're gonna move on.

We're gonna move on to your next recording, which is a, it's an incredible recording of common crane. Do you want to just tell us a little bit about this before I play it? 

Two male cranes fighting over the same mire for 12 hours straight. 

Really? Yeah. Before females have arrived, do you think? Or 

for some reason?

I could hear lots of paired cranes in the distance. You can hear in the, in the recordings as well that, that they have, they have kind of a couple kind of making their calls, but for some reason there were two males in, in this area. Quite a small mire. But both of them wanted to have kind of occupied that small mire.

Yeah, it's a very unusual recording. This I'll play it first. It's quite incredible to hear these birds breathing kind of heavily. You, you can actually hear the effort they're putting in. Mm-hmm. It's quite, quite remarkable. I'll play it now. This is common crane.

  





 It's, it's absolutely amazing to hear them so close and those kind of low grunting sounds they make as well. 

Yeah. If, if you feel their aggressivity, they're really aggressive towards each other. 

Yeah. 

Yeah. And, and they started out early. I was camping or having my, my, my small tents close to the mire.

And it started off that one of the cranes almost flow into my tent. And I, I wonder why it flow so low. But then I realized that there was this competitor of the kinda resident male, and they started, it was really wet this year, 2023 2024. It was actually, it was really wet and, and they were kind running and flying in the mire chasing each other for a very long time.

Actually, I woke up a couple of times during the night. I can hear them still kind of running, flying and this recording is from early, early morning when they've been chasing each other for through the whole night. And you can hear that they're almost got this kind of dinosaur like feeling when they go.

You hear the

exhausted at that point. Yeah, exactly. It constantly amazes me how much effort birds put in when they get back to the breeding grounds. It's just normal. Really is. Well, it's an absolutely amazing recording. Well done. Thank you. We will move on to Capercaillie, which is a species I don't think I've played ever on the podcast.

Mm-hmm. I've never recorded the species myself. So this is a Capercaillie lek and where was this recorded? You don't need to give any specific locations, just a general kind of, 

Thi Yeah. This was northeast of Uppsala about 30 kilometers northeast of Uppsala. 

Mm-hmm. From this spring. I'll play it first. I'll play it first.

It's a wonderful recording. So this is lekking Cappercaillies.

  

It, it's amazing that Infrasound, we talked about it already earlier, that you hear it so clearly there. 

Yeah. A after the plot you can hear the can release is come and also think that, you know, when you had the, the flutter comes, when, when the, when the cost, when the males kind of fly up a a half meter or so that's, that's always got this component of really low, really, really low sound.

Kind of starting from five hertz up to kind of 50 hertz. So that might also be a way kind of communicating over long distances. Mm-hmm. 

Yeah, I think so. It's again, an amazing recording. The next one we have is Willow Warbler. Do you want to just talk us through this before I play it? 

This was very close to where I live, where, where I, where I returned to quite often it's, it's a small pond.

In, in the, in the, in the, the forest area of nos. And it was a really clo cold morning. And, and, and well, lots of fog also in the morning, but, but the Willow Warblers had just arrived. I think this was in yeah, there was a 23rd of April. The first Willow Warbler said have had a right. And they were really kind of trying to out compete each other.

Mm-hmm. 

I play the recording now. This is Willow Warbler.

 Terima telah menonton

Sampai jumpa

Terima telah

Terima telah

Sampai jumpa

Selamat menikmati

Terima telah menonton

Sampai jumpa 

Now it, it's notable with all your recordings as you did. The background is absolutely wonderful as well. Just a wonderful chorus of bird songs. Mm-hmm. Very, very nice. Was that recorded with a parabola, or 

it was with the parabola, exactly. Yeah. So this, this is one of the few ones using the parabola where I actually in the field trying to mix, mix the recording with having this mix pre three, so that three different channels in, into the parabola.

Mm-hmm. So I could actually in the field just decide how much of the background I wanted in addition to the, the Willow Warbler. 

Are you, you using another microphone as well as the parabola at the same time? Or, 

Th this is, this is a Wildtronic setup, the stereo parabola. So they have three different microphones built in to their Okay.

To their parabola. I tried to b to buy a Telinga , five years ago, but I couldn't couldn't get hold of the ones behind it that's selling a parabola. So I, after kind of failing for six months, I decided to go through the, the American version of it and I, I like it quite a lot actually.

Mm-hmm. So it's a big, big parabola with the two stereo micro microphones in front and one, one  parabola microphone in in the back. 

Okay. I didn't realize it was, it was set up in that way. No worries. We're gonna move on to Slavonian Grebe. Again, early spring, I would assume, when the birds are just back on the breeding grounds mm-hmm.

And displaying birds. Where was it recorded? Around Uppsala again, or, 

It was called very small pond called Stor Kärret. It's very close to  Hammarskog. 

Okay. 

They're a fantastic species. I'll play this for you now. This is displaying s Slavonian Grebe.

  

 

It builds up really nicely that recording. It's fantastic. And again, all the species, the wood, pigeons, green sandpipers, everything in the background. It's fantastic. Mm-hmm. 

Yeah. The, the, the microphones were almost inside the water at the, at this point, I scouted the area the day before and I know where, where the pair would roughly would be.

And they put out the microphones just by the water and, and for the whole night. And, and the first kind of, the first call is when you look Atto, they call that a warning calls, that was midnight, the warning call. Mm-hmm. And there, there's a mixture a mixed, the recording. So, so the kind of display is later on in the early mornings then 

Yeah, the Cree call, I think they call it as well.

Mm-hmm. And yeah, it's a very, very nice recording. Once again, now we're gonna move on to a very special species now one of the northern owls in my opinion, probably the best of them Great Grey Owl. Hmm. And obviously no location for this one, but it's a fantastic recording. What time of the year was this recorded?

This was in early May. I just found the first out of five Nests this year of Great Grey Owls. 

Mm-hmm. And in this recording this compound hooting, I presume from a male. And are the earlier calls, are they from a female maybe, or, 

Actually this is quite a rare recording because I can only hear the female begging for food from the, from the male.

And the, the, the song you hear is, is female song. It's female 

compound. The Hooting as well. 

The hooting is female as well on, on the Nest. And it's quite quite rare to, to hear the females singing from the nest because they have the same kind of hoo hooting call as a male, but kind of a slight more kind of croaky voice and not as deep as, as a male.

And what I found this year was that I found Five Nest, as I said and two of these nests two personal nests were really close to each other. And what I think I'm, I'm sure at all, but I, what I think is that there were two females sharing one male. So they, they kind of hooting for, , for the  attention of the male to, to come give them, give them food.

I've talked to one of the, kind of the foremost persons that know about Great Grey Owls in Sweden, in, in Northern Sweden and he said that he, the females quite rarely make this kind of hooting from the nest. But this one, this individual was doing it all the time.

Okay. But play it now. First this is Great Grey Owl, an incredible recording.

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die,  die,  die  baby,  baby,  baby,  al  vorher  Mm.

Right.  Okay.  Yeah.  Um,  uh,  uh,  um,  um.  Um,  uh,  I  saw  you.

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Yeah, it's quite, quite amazing. And again, the background, common cuckoo and all, all the species and the background is absolutely wonderful. Quick question for you. I dunno if you've noticed, maybe, do you find that there's a, a greater density of breeding songbirds close to big predators nests

maybe? Good question. Good question. I'm not sure if, if, if the predators are actually the, the, the, the birds of prey are living in a kind of, these kind of habitats that are really rich mm-hmm. To start with. And that's kind of a coincidence that they're, I'm not sure if, if what's this the cultural effects of that actually if, if, if it's just really good areas where you find both birds of prey and lots of different passerines as well.

But I'm not sure. But maybe yeah. It's something, 

it's something I've noticed with Goshawk around Stockholm, in sort of semi-urban environments, I always find there's a lot of birds very, very close to goshawks nests quite often. I'm just wondering if it's, if it's a protection thing, they use the birds as a, a shield sort.

And actually, I was just going to say that, that there was a goshawk nest close to this great royal real nest. And actually this pair were recorded which I recorded here was the nest was predated not, not the female. I, I'm not sure where, where it went, but, but I found when going back there, I found at least one egg on, on the ground.

And what, I think it was a, not the so, but a Jay taking the eggs. And there were, yeah, it was a really rich area here. And you have, you had Martins you had, you had boars, you had Jay s of course, and the Goshawk had buzzard you have Ural Owls, you have Tengmalms Owl, you have Pygmy Owls.

So it's a wonderful area. And, and it's still kinda really heavily managed forest landscapes. So lots of clear cuts everywhere, but still there are kind of pockets of, of nice areas 

and pristine woodland. 

Yeah. Yeah. And actually this recording was with, with the parabola as well. But, but, but I put out the drop rigs here as well with the, with the Zoom F3 and the Clippys.

And that's how I realized that there was another pair in the distance, because I hear, could hear another female begging further away. And then we kind of searched the whole area for finding the other nest. So the other nest was 450 meters away. And they managed to, to, to fledge two young that nest.

Okay, good. That's good. Good news. We'll move on to a much smaller species. It's actually quite scarce in Sweden and it's Penduline Tit. A lovely recording of a singing male. And again, where was this recorded? 

This was l Lake Vendelsjö n , central North of Upland. And this, this has been one of the bird species I want to record the song of for.

The whole of my life because I've read in the books that they have this kind of simple cult hit song. And I, I and I was quite surprised when I heard kind of the complexity of the song. 

Yeah, it's far from simple. This, it's a beautiful recording. I'll play it for you now. This is displaying Penduline Tit.

 Wow.

Wow. Wow. 

Well done. That's wonderful. Mm-hmm. It's a beautiful song, isn't it? 

It is. And they were, they they, this was a male and a female and they were actively building on the nest, both of them. And the male was actually singing Inside the Nest while building, and the female was. 10, 15 centimeters away from the nest.

So most of the song was actually from the male inside the nest. 

And again, lots in the background. Little Gull things there as well. Exactly. All stuff. The next recording is another wetland species. An incredible recording. I've recorded a species several times, but I've never managed to get anywhere near this close.

And again, it's the whole infrasound thing kind of coming through here. Mm-hmm. It's just nice to hear not just the booming but all of the little kind of details around it just before they start. And I'll play it now. It's bitter. We'll, we'll play it first and then we'll discuss it afterwards Bo.

 Um. 

Now there's a lot to unpack there. Firstly, the Bittern the Bittern itself, absolutely wonderful. Recording it. It's amazing to hear all those little kind of grunts and the warm up to it. And 

yeah, that was the first time I actually heard that, the kind of clicking sound before that kind of so, I would say that it was within five meter from the bird at at this point.

Yeah. 

So it was very small, better reads kind of along the channel. So it's very kind, small, small read bed. So it must have been hiding inside this read bed. And 

the microphone, was that clippy, or was it the audio Technica? 

This is all Technica in, in front of me. So I, I tried to, when you hear it first, if you have kind of the, the headphones on, you can hear that first thing on the, on the left hand side.

And then I tried to maneuver the, the canoe, the kayak. So I was kind of having on both sides. So later on you can hear in, in both, both channels. 

Yeah. One of the other wonderful things about that recording is the Black Terns in the background. Absolutely fantastic. 

Yeah, it is. It's probably the biggest, it is the biggest colony in Sweden.

Probably all of the Nordic countries. It's, I'm not sure about the exact number, but there are in excess of a hundred pairs up there. And they have yeah, it's, it's, it's at paradise actually going in, in there with the canoe and lake Sorsjön/Tamnaren, and, and you have. Lots of great read warble singing there as well.

And you have, I I would say that there's maybe five displaying Bitterns in that small area. And it's very shallow, so it's about less than one meters deep, the whole area. Okay. And a big, big lake or a kind of sub lake or something, kinda sub lake extent. 

It, it's somewhere that I've never visited and it's, it's, it's gonna be high on the list, I think in the next couple of years.

I just wanna get up and have a look at that place. 

It's the best, one of the best places in Sweden. Yeah. And it's gonna hit game. Yeah, it 

sounds absolutely incredible. 

Hmm. 

I, I am guessing we have a recording of Great Reed Warbler. I'm guessing that's possibly in the same location, is it? 

Yep, exactly. It, it is a few, couple of hundred meters away.

Okay. We'll play that now straight away and then we'll have a chat about that afterwards. This is Great Reed Warbler also at Tamnaren in Sweden.

  

 

Incredible birds, aren't they? 

Yeah, they're, 

it's a huge, big warblers. 

Yeah. I've, I've had lots of encounters between, between Great Reed Warblers and Reed Warblers and and Reed Warblers being chased away by the Great Reed Warblers. 

Mm-hmm. They just morphed them. Yeah, exactly. It's a, it's a wonderful, again, the black turns everything in the background, just the whole wetland scene is absolutely wonderful.

And was that from a Kayak as well? 

Yeah, the same thing with I'll do Technica and in front of me. 

Yep. Brilliant. Recording. We're gonna move on to Nightjar next, Nightjar song. Do you wanna just maybe just tell us where this roughly was recorded or what time of the year? 

RA Wolf territory north west of Sala in mid-July this year.

And and I've been scouting this exact kind of a small hill in the forested landscape for, for quite a while. And I wanted to to have kinda all the kind of minor details, not not only the song, but also hear the wing flapping and mm-hmm. And this recording, I, I think I actually managed to, to record the, the mating of the male and female as well.

Yeah. I'll play it now. It's fantastic. This recording. It's, it's just wonderful.

  



 Fantastic recording. Nice to get the contact call. The background was fantastic as well. Mm-hmm. Just and then just to get the, the wing flaps as well. I was actually flaps amazed to realize they were actually clapping over their backs the first time I actually seen it in, 

in the wild. Yeah. Yeah. And I think this, this male is actually sitting on a, on a pine branch for that most of the time.

Then you can hear the female, you cannot, you can hear them calling in the distance coming closer by, and then you hear the male kind of flapping and then going down to the ground. You hear lots of, kind of strange noises on the ground or and then you have this kind of, kind of, kind of almost squeaky noises, but which I think is kind of mating.

It's a wonderful species. Now, the last recording I have, I kept the last, it's actually, they're all wonderful recordings. Curlew quite bittersweet for me. I don't know if you're aware, the Irish population has crashed breeding population. I'm from Ireland, and it's, it's gone down to very, very few pairs.

It's kind of tragic, but when you hear that it's such a beautiful sound, 

it is the same thing, but no plan. When I started kind of doing my PhD work, there were several pairs breeding close to Uppsala in Kungsängen, just in kind of very close to Uppsala. And nowadays you can't find any breeding curlew at all close to Uppsala.

And this is kind of a a mire or a small lake in northwest of Upsala in, in the forest landscape. And that's one of the few pairs actually breeding in Uppland nowadays. Mm-hmm. 

Yeah. It's, it's such an iconic sound and it is terrible to think you could, you could lose something like this. Mm-hmm. I'll play the recording.

This is a beautiful recording of curlew in display.

  

 

It's a sound. I actually grew up with in Dublin. Mm-hmm. My, my parents are, we were just up the road from a huge estuary and it was, you know, hundreds of birds there in the winter. So it, quite often I'd hear these birds even flying over the house in the evening, going back to roost. It always just takes me back to my childhood was an absolutely incredible sound.

It's one of my favorite sounds as well. It's that one of the black throated divers, kind of the, the ones I like the most. 

Yeah. Well, that's it. All that remains for me to say is thank you very, very much for coming onto to the podcast, Bo. It's been absolute pleasure. To talk to you. I'd like to remind people that they can go on the SoundCloud, sorry, SoundCloud online and just look up your recordings, Bo Soderström and you have many errors of absolutely wonderful recordings there.

And I would urge people to go and have a listen to your work. It's absolutely incredible. Bo 

thank you. Thank you very much. Nice to be here. Do, 

do keep up the good work. It's absolutely wonderful to, to be able to listen your recordings online. 

I will, for sure. I will. Absolutely. 

We'll be in touch again, I hope.

Oh I'd like to thank you once again for coming on to Wild Bird Acoustics. It's been absolute pleasure. Thank you very much. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. You're welcome. 📍 



So there you go folks. That was an interview with Bo and it was wonderful to talk to Bo about his recording process and actually just share some of his recordings. As always, very, very humbling to talk to recorders who just freely give up their time and share their recordings in such a manner. And I'd like to thank Bob once again for coming on to the podcast and sharing such wonderful audio with all of you guys. I hope you gained a little bit of insight into this process and. I think the recordings are absolutely incredible and I think the listeners would've enjoyed that immensely. Now we're coming towards the end of season two of the podcast, just two episodes remain.

I do hope you have enjoyed the season. I will ask once again that you spread the word about the podcast. It seems to be spreading by word of mouth, and that is absolutely fantastic. So once again, thanks to all you guys out there for all your help in this regard. We'll talk to you soon in a couple of weeks, folks.

Thanks for listening.

 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 Wild Bird acoustics@gmail.com.

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We will 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.