Snipe and Curlews - Antrim Plateau Nocturnal Soundscape (June)
The Glenwherry project area on the Antrim Plateau overlaps with the Antrim Hills Special Protection Area and Important Bird Area. It is an extensive upland plateau which supports large numbers of breeding waders.
In Glenwherry I was supported by the local Curlew LIFE Project Officer, Katie Gibb, and research assistant Annie Birtwhistle. We were blessed with perfect weather, and treated to a night-time cacophony of snipe and curlews. As the last of the sunset’s peachy-pinkness drained below the horizon, the snipe came out in force, drumming their tail feathers above us and ‘chipping’ from the ground. A sheep coughed like a human. Before long, as if they knew we’d been waiting for them, eerie nocturnal curlew sounds entered the soundscape. After some initial contact calls, one of the adults started making an alarm call that none of us had heard before – a strange, short stabbing sound, repeated over many minutes. The final sections of this soundscape feature the loudest snipe drumming I’ve ever heard.
Species: snipe, curlew, starling.
From Disc II of Simmerdim: Curlew Sounds
The Geltsdale and Hadrian’s Wall Curlew LIFE project site in England covers 20,810 hectares along the Northumberland and Cumbria border. The area includes RSPB Geltsdale Nature Reserve, a patchwork of blanket bog, heath grassland, meadows and woodland habitats. Recorded alongside Tindale Tarn in Geltsdale, this soundscape captures the iconic bubbling songs of male curlews displaying to attract mates and defend their territories. The recording also features a cuckoo, and wing flaps of curlew pairs on the ground, surrounded by sheep and lambs.
From Disc II of Simmerdim: Curlew Sounds.
Image by Francis J Taylor.
Species: curlew, song thrush, meadow pipit, pheasant, willow warbler, moorhen, canada goose, woodpigeon, cuckoo, red grouse, oystercatcher, wren, carrion crow, garden warbler.
Peñas Blancas Nature Reserve
This recording was made after sunset in a rainforest in the north of Nicaragua. It features rain falling gently through the canopy, and the calls of insects and frogs.
Thank you to Andi Icaza
This recording was made at one of my favourite spots along the Fife Coastal Path on the East Coast of Scotland, just outside St Andrews. It features the tide lapping against the shore, a rustling reed bed and the song of a Whitethroat.
A thunderstorm I recorded from a window in Tirana, capital of Albania.
This recording follows my footsteps around the beautiful Ottoman town of Gjirokastër in southern Albania - from the old town near Gjirokastër castle into the surrounding countryside and back, leaving in the afternoon and returning late at night.