Stability Through Motion

Radio 4 have just broadcast a programme about Ludwig Koch – the first person apparently to bring us recordings of birdsong. Listen

Read more about Ludwig at WSRS

Lazy country birds. I’m sure they start up at around 4am here in the town, but last night I stayed up and drove to Dry Sandford Pit at 3.30am, as you do, and sat for an hour waiting for my first tweet. I couldn’t get the dratted pre-mixer to work in stereo with the Edirol, so lugged the video camera out with me and walked round the woods with two Sennheisers in tow. Nothing but owls and disturbed crows until about 4.50am, then as the sky lightened the birds really awoke. An amazing experience, surrounded by song and only the occasional rumble of traffic from the A420, or airplane. I’m still searching for that elusive quiet woodland in Oxfordshire, where you can’t hear a road.

As always, headphones will provide the best listening experience, but steady yourself for a shock near the start – don’t keep a cup of tea near the keyboard.

Go get Adobe Flash Player!

Go get Adobe Flash Player!

A weekend of filming, recording and running. Very chuffed with myself as I managed to run up Pen y Fan, something I’ve wanted to do for years. My longest run since January would you believe – only 11 miles, but a beautiful route and by far the quickest way to get to the top!

The audio is from a combination of Trecastle (where I stayed at the friendly Castle Inn) dawn chorus, waterfalls along the Afon Tawe, and the waterfalls at Blaen y Glyn.

Last weekend was spent with oodles of cable, cameras and microphones, and at last some of the results are emerging. You’ll need a pretty recent version of the Flash Player to view this video below [technical details follow]

H.264 encoded for Flash from HD quality footage. I haven’t seen it at HD resolution myself yet – pending purchase of an HDTV or monitor! My brain is a mush of resolutions, camcorder settings, microphone inputs, codecs and javascript right now.

Meanwhile I ran another 7 miles around the University Parks this morning – crocuses all over the shop, quite stunning.

Go get Adobe Flash Player!

Thanks to OFVM, who’ve granted me their Midas award, I’ve been out and about this weekend filming and recording with some quite nice gear. Most of the weekend was spent figuring out what bit of cable went where and carting it around the shop – from Brighton beach to Burnham Beeches. I hope to put some results up soon, when I can get the swanky camera to talk to Vista 64bit.

I’m seriously impressed by the combination of two Sennheiser ME66 microphones, a Sound Devices MixPre pre-mixer/amplifier, and my trusty half-broken Edirol R-09. My last attempt at recording the sea was rubbish, though I’m thinking that might be more to do with the much more subtle sounds the sea makes on sand – shingle is just so instantly evocative and powerful.

The award will culminate with some kind of public art installation in June/July. So with that and the Art in the Arboretum project in July, I’m going to be kept pretty busy. Next week I’m performing Transporter Mix again, in its original format – three transportable trays filled with earth/turf/shingle/leaves.

And, most important of all, I’m finally back running again. After my longest break from running since I started, my orthotics turned up in the post and I ran along the cliffs from Peacehaven. After five weeks of indoors gym, it was such a relief to be outdoors once more.

It’s not spring quite I know, but the blackbirds have arrived and the morning noise is escalating.

Go get Adobe Flash Player!

Meanwhile, I’ve been to the Plant Sciences Library, a small oasis of calm in the Science block at the University, overlooking the forbidding Biomedical Sciences Building. I took notes, by hand, how quaint, from the 1999 Catalogue of Plants growing in the University of Oxford Botanic Gardens & Harcourt Arboretum. I was searching for a handy guide to the age of some of the trees at Harcourt, but unfortunately, nothing is dated prior to 1964, when the University took over the Arboretum. I’m sure the gardeners will know, so that’s the obvious next step.

Go get Adobe Flash Player!

While I’m not running (small calf niggle that I don’t want to talk about) – here are some jackdaws

Go get Adobe Flash Player!

Recorded in Wytham Woods on Saturday at about 1pm on a two hour walk.

The single finch(?) has quietened, and now we get the full dawn chorus – really wonderful at 6am.

Go get Adobe Flash Player!