Brief encounters

02/05/10
My second attempt to record the dawn chorus met with much more success: both microphones working. When you enter the moors, even at this time, the hum of the A34 is distant but persistent, like an acoustic collar around the area. Normally my brain must filter out this sound, but through headphones the background noise of business on the move becomes conspicuous. Yet this morning, as I walk into the moors, I am engulfed in a concert of birdsong, which seems to carry ones listening out to the very edges of audible space. There are a few theories regarding dawn chorus: male birds announce they have survived the night and their DNA is pretty good, another one I read recently and which I rather like, was that because birds can’t feed in early light, they just sing to occupy the time.
The moors are full of brief encounters and chance meetings, things come and go: a startled dear darting across a path; the whisper of air moving through feathers as birds fly past; the huff of trainers on gravel as red faced runners approach, say hello and pass on by. This morning I held the microphone out into the birdsong and a pair of geese took that moment to bark their approach, passing directly over my head before disappearing into the distant blur of the A34. I closed my eyes and let my listening follow them out of frame. You can’t plan to record moments like this, and if you did I’m sure you would be disappointed.
I would recommend you use headphones to listen to the sound file above.