Another amazing dawn with the starling flock at RSPB Ham Wall in Somerset. With sound artists Kathy Hinde, Matt Davies we recorded the remarkable sounds of half a million starlings as they left their evening roost. I’ll post sounds soon, but in the meantime, here’s one of photographer John Loman’s images of the spectacle.
On Sunday February 26 I’ll be leading a days soundwalk with Wildwise around the Exe Estuary listening to the sounds of thousands of wintering waterbirds. The day starts at high tide at 10am at the quay in Topsham. From there we’ll walk along the banks of the estuary to the RSPBs reserve at Bowling Green Marsh where we’ll take in the flights of wading birds and wildfowl as they head back out on to the mud flats. After a leisurely lunch we will head over to Trout’s Boatyard for 3pm where we will take a boat trip along the river as low tide passes to get up close to the birds feeding on the rich silts of the estuary.
What to wear and bring: Warm clothing plus boots or wellies. Prepare for rain too! Binoculars if you have them, but not vital as we’ll be using our ears!
Lunch: To be confirmed, but there are a number of good pubs and cafe’s in Topsham.
Cost: £20 per person
Time: 10am to 4:30pm
Location: Start and end in Topsham
To book contact Wildwise on 01803 868269 or info@wildwise.co.uk
As part of the continuing series of Flittermice and Hoots walks, on Sunday, February 5 (4:00pm to 7:00pm) I’m leading a high tide sound walk from the Quay in Topsham, Devon to listen to the river’s birds.
Throughout the winter thousands of waterbirds flock to the Exe estuary. Every day, at high tide they leave the estuary and roost communally at a small number of locations around the Exe -one of these is at the RSPB’s nature reserve at Bowling Green Marsh in Topsham.
The walk is on level ground and mostly on good footpaths. But please bring boots or wellies as one short section can be a muddy. Also – WRAP UP WARM! The estuary is one of the coldest places I know in Devon in Winter! Bring torches as some of the walk will be in the dark.
If you’re interested in making sound recordings, bring along a digital or other recording device as there will be many opportunities for capturing the evening’s soundscape.
Details and booking here
With artist Kathy Hinde and a small group of early morning listeners we had an amazing experience of hundreds of thousands of starlings leaving their Somerset roost at dawn. Moving, spectacular, stunning … what more can I say.
I’ll be helping out with this walk to listen to the starling murmurations out on the Avalon Marshes in Somerset on 19 November.
In autumn I’ll be working again with Sound and Music to help roll out a trial of their new Minute of Listening project in Cornwall. A fascinating idea, and the sort of thing I would have loved at school!
Thanks to everyone who came on our night time wander to listen to the thousands of birds roosting at high tide at Dawlish Warren. Sitting quietly in the dark at the roost sharing the sound of oystercatchers, brent geese, curlew, wigeon and dunlin all jostling for space was really wonderful, perhaps amplified by the remarkably high spring tide and the perfect cool stillness of the air.
I’ll be thinking about one more sound walk as part of Aune Head Arts Flittermice and Hoots series in the next few weeks … and will try and put the field recordings into a podcast to try and hint at the sound experinces we’ve had.
As part of Aune Head Arts Flittermice and Hoots series I’m leading an evening sound walk to identify and listen to the migrant wildfowl for which Dawlish Warren is so well known. If you’re interested in making sound recordings, bring along a mini-disc, digital or other recording device as there will be many opportunities for capturing the evening’s soundscape.
This sound project, linking selected schools in Belgium, Spain, Denmark and UK is coming to an end. The results from Cornwall are documented here.
Due to poor weather we resheduled our walk in search of crickets and grasshoppers and other small sounds to the week following the advertised date. Fortunately it was second time lucky as six of us enjoyed a warm still evening’s wander around Orley Common.
We were rewarded with the quiet sounds of dark bush crickets and the considerably louder reeling of the UK’s largest insect, the great green bush cricket. Alongside these we also recorded the echo-location of bats transposed through a bat detector and numerous calls of birds, including some very active jays and the pre roost calls of blackbirds.
Finally, in darkness, we picked our way back to the car park, our path faintly illuminated by the natural limestone paving.
The following week we gathered again, this time at Aune Head Arts studios at Dartington. There, using laptops and the studio’s very wizzy Macs we started to edit our collected audio in what will be a series of short podcasts for Aune Head’s website. More on this in October.
