It's been a while since I've updated everyone on The Northwest Soundscape Project, so I thought I'd upload a passage from a recent trip.
This is an evening recording made at the Conboy Lake National Wildlife Refuge https://www.fws.gov/refuge/conboy_lake/ on May 13, 2016.
To anyone that lives rurally around the Refuge, I'm sure this evening chorus is nothing spectacular, normal even. To a city-boy like myself, though, it's magical. The bullfrog on the left is over 150 feet away, probably more. How can I be sure? Because my mic cables are 150 feet exactly, and it was further than that. Recording that in the city would be laughable, if not impossible.
*****EDIT*****
So it turns out I was far, far off. Those crazy space-monkeys aren't frogs at all. They are a bird called Wilson's Snipe. And that sound? Produced by their TAIL.
https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Wilsons_Snipe/sounds
*****ORIGINAL FOLLOWS*****
I can identify, quite readily, the Bullfrogs and Pacific Chorus Frogs... but I'd really appreciate it if someone out there could tell me what the crazy space-monkeys are? I know they're frogs, but that's about as far as my naturalist abilities extend.
***** END EDIT ORIGINAL*****
There are a few moments of birds, mostly Coots and ducks trying to sleep nearby. In the distance a dog barks @21 min. Fifteen minutes before this recording the nearby Sandhill Crane flock had a moment of rowdiness. I'll let y'all hear that track later.
This track is straight from the recorder, down-mixed to stereo from Double-MS, boosted +15db (despite the pre-amps already being open all the way), down sampled to 48kHz from 192kHz, and that's it. No filtering, no editing, no other mastering.
Acoustics:
Biophony: frogs, frogs, more frogs, Wilson's Snipe, waterfowl (coots? ducks), distant dog, crickets
Geophony: trickling water, very light wind in reeds and surrounding distant cottonwoods and Douglas Fir
Anthropophony: possible car engines or plane rumble very distant @13 minutes
Temperature: 65°F
Relative Humidity: 31%
Barometric Pressure: 29.86 in
Wind: negligible
Skies: Clear
Equipment:
Mic configuration: Double-MS (downmixed to stereo)
mid-front: MKH8040
mid-rear: MKH8040
side: MKH30
Recorder: Zaxcom Zax-Max
