Nocturnal Migration at Landsort; A Song for Spring

In this episode, firstly, a short sound magazine that serves as an overview of my nocturnal recordings at Landsort, Sweden, over the course of the spring season in 2024. As always, plenty of interesting nocturnal migrants were identified moving over the island, a superb location for passage of many bird species at this time of the year. I discuss some of the better quality recording that were secured over the season here and share some thoughts on these..

The main feature, which follows the introductory segment, is a sound magazine comprised of various field recording taken over the course on the spring season in 2024. Here, I have delved into my library of audio from the Spring of 2024, a period when I was extremely active and spent a lot of time in the field. In essence, a nice collection of random recordings, of various species and locations, for your enjoyment.

Transcript

  You're all very welcome to wild bird acoustics. I'm your host, Alan Dalton, and I'll be taking you on a journey into sound. 



 Now, welcome everybody to another episode here at Wild Bird Acoustics. It's season two, episode nine. And as always, I have a wonderful episode lined up for you today.  Now before I get started, I just want to give a quick shout out to Mr. Dave Boyle, who popped in and bought a few coffees. That is very much appreciated, Dave.

Dave's been working on Chatham Island with the Tyco Petrel. He's been doing some wonderful work there, just monitoring the species,  and just making sure the breeding population there is safe and well. So well done Dave. And it was wonderful to reconnect with you. Keep up the good work. And I do hope you're enjoying the podcast.

 He's told me he's been binging the whole thing, which is wonderful to hear. So thanks very much, Dave, and keep up the good work. 

 Now we're going to dive straight into the podcast, and I know there's a lot of you guys out there, the listeners, who do a lot of Nocmig recording, and a few of you have been asking if I'll be doing some Nocmig sound magazines. I have the first Nocmig corner for you now in this episode.  This will be spring Knockmig recordings from Landsort, my main listening station here in Sweden. I've got through all of that audio now and I've put together a little sound magazine with some of the better recordings. This is   Knockmig recording in spring at Landsort in Sweden.



  Now, welcome everybody to Nocmig Corner. And in this short sound magazine, we're going to take a short look at the Nocmig results from my listening station at Landsort in the spring of 2024. Now, it was an excellent spring. I had a lot of good species and I'm going to run through a few of the better recordings with you now.

Sometimes I get a few rarities. Sometimes the recordings are not quite as good as I would like. So what I'm going to do is concentrate on the better quality recordings.  So I'll just quickly run through some of those better recordings now from the spring knockmig season at Landsort in Sweden.  Now, as always, I started recording in early March and March is generally fairly quiet. 

But one of the species that can go through in fairly good numbers in spring, early in the season, is common blackbird. I have a lovely bit of audio here for you. It's about three minutes long, and this is the peak night of a blackbird passage this spring. It came on the 29th of March, and it peaked at about 2.

30 in the morning when hundreds of birds went over the recorder. So this is all blackbird. You can hear pretty much what it sounds like to have a good night in spring for the species in this recording.  Once again, this is heavy passage of common blackbird. at Lanzert on the 29th of March 2024. 

Next for you, I have Caspian Tern and on the 6th of April, I got a lovely recording of a couple of adult birds moving over the recorder in the middle of the night at about 1am.  Listen for their low, raucous calls as they pass over the recorder. There's also a red fox here in the background, not to be confused with the birds. 

Now, Caspian Tern is quite rare on the island, I get a handful every year, so it's always nice to get a recording of these species, and it's a nice bird to get on Knocknake.  This is Caspian Tern at Landsort on the 6th of April, 2024. 

Now we'll move a little bit further into the spring, into early May, and I had good numbers, as usual, of Common Scouter overflying the island at night.  I'll play a recording now of a flock of common scouter going right over the recorder on the 7th of May at about 5 past 11 in the evening in the blackness.

This is a very regular species at Landsort, always a nice species to get and I quite like this low piping call from the male birds. Have a listen folks, this is common scouter at Landsort. 

European Golden Plover is one of my favourite knock make calls. I absolutely love this call. It's such a low plaintive whistle and it's very, very beautiful to the ear. At least to my ear. I'm going to play a nice recording. This is a particularly nice recording from early April on the island. This is a European Golden Plover and this bird went over on the 16th of April at 10 past 11.

Have a listen to this folks. 

Now the next recording is of a species that will be very, very familiar to a lot of listeners. You probably get them quite regularly. But actually far out on the Stockholm archipelago at Landsark, this bird is extremely rare. The species I'm talking about is Little Grabe. And I got this bird on the 19th of May, 2024, and it represented the first record on the island in many, many years, and a lot of the regular observers on the island were quite jealous of this record.

Now, of course, I didn't see the record. It's a knockmeg record. The board is extremely rare by day, but it's fantastic to get a night migration record for the island and for the observatory. So this is the value of NOCmig, and sometimes common species on NOCmig can give you a real boost, and this was a case in point. 

So this is that recording of Little Grey while we're flying the observatory on the 19th of May 2024 at the Landsort. 

Now the beauty of Knocknig is picking up species that are very very scarce normally during the day and at Landsort several species over the years have actually come into this bracket. One of them is Moorhen and again it's a very rare species on the island but You know, since I started actually checking the island out, Nottmig wise, it seems that they are fairly regular.

I get a handful of records, one or two every year. This is a very quick recording. This is a Moorhen overflying Lansart in April 2024. 

A common species next, it's common red shank. I get good numbers of these birds moving over in the spring. And I'm going to play a quick recording now of a red shank overflying the recorder in April 2024. 

Now another very short recording, it's Eurasian skylark. I get a few in spring, not a whole lot. And it's the same in autumn. It's quite surprising at this site actually that we don't get more of this species. But this is a single call of Eurasian skylark at Landsort on the 6th of April 2024. 

Next up, a very subtle call. It's snow bunting and it's the trail call of these species at night. I've just got one more in the spring, which is quite unusual. I usually get a few more. But this is the only recording I got of snow bunting in April 2024. Have a listen. 

Now, knockmeat files are often very small. Another short recording here for you of male Eurasian tail overflying the recorder. Mid April 2024. Very distinctive call quite a regular species in spring and also in autumn. This is male Eurasian teal 

Water rail next and this is a fantastic knock me call three classic knock me call And it still blows my mind that these boards are just white writing over the stockholm archipelago at night This came from mid march in 2024 snaps the wonderful recording again One of those calls at night that I just love to hear.

This is water rail at night. 

A nice recording for you next of two species there, Hooper Swan and Eurasian Skylark. This came on the 22nd of March 2024. Like I say, just the calls of Hooper Swan and a single call, very clear recording of Eurasian Skylark. Quite a nice knock make recording. 

Now one of the regular species I get in spring is Eurasian Woodcock. They start to go over in late March and by mid April I have birds regularly eroding over. The Observatory. There's a couple of pairs at least breeding on the island, probably more. And it's an absolutely wonderful call. There's nothing like a roding woodcock.

I have a particularly nice recording. I keep a few recordings every year, even though I get them every night. And here you will hear the low grunting calls of an approaching Eurasian Woodcock in roading display, interspersed with the high pitched calls of the species. Quite a wonderful sound, and something I will never get tired of.

This is the roading display of Eurasian Woodcock. 

Now one of the specialities  of Landsart is migrating long tailed duck at night.  Quite often during the day you can get thousands of birds moving through in April. And here is a knockmate recording of this species. I can imagine if you're an inland recorder somewhere, say in the UK, this would absolutely make your spring.

It's a wonderful sound. Quite love this call. This is migrating long tailed duck at night. Very distinctive call. And I'll play that for you now. 

Now, I'll give you one more recording of long tailed duck. I've quite a few recordings. This is another similar recording from the 11th of March.  2024. Once again, this is Longtail Duck overflying the recorder on the island. Have a listen. 

So there you go folks, that's Knockmig Corner for you. The spring season at the Lansart. It was a wonderful season. I had great numbers of Redwing, Songthrush, Common Blackboard, species like that. Numbers were high for the spring season and also a nice sprinkling of scarcer species, some of which you just heard there.

I hope you have enjoyed the recordings. That's off me here at the podcast for the moment. And I hope you've enjoyed Knockmig Corner here at Wild Bird Acoustics. 

  So there you go that's a short roundup of the better sound recordings I got in the spring at Landsort and it was quite a wonderful season. . As I put this episode together, it's the 20th of March and I'm still actually going through the last days of NocMig of 2024 in the late autumn period.

But don't worry, there's plenty more nocturnal audio to come later in Season 2. I'll definitely be putting a few more sound magazines together for you guys. 

  📍   Now a little roundup for you. Quite a lot going on here at the moment in Sweden. I'm actually working at the moment quite a lot in a woodland habitat. That's for the season three of Wild Bird Acoustics. I'm already working on it folks.  As you've probably realized it takes an awful lot of effort and work to actually get these recordings to actually get enough audio to put an entire season of.

A podcast like this together. It's a huge amount of work, but I do greatly, greatly enjoy it. And, like I say, I've been in some wonderful woodland habitat for the last few weekends and it's been quite incredible. As I speak, I have an SM Mini recorder out in Blackwood pecker habitat. , I'm really looking forward to collecting that this weekend and going through that audio.

 I decided this year to spend a bit more time in woodland habitat. I just, I just love the audio. I can get there, especially before migrants return.    And I decided this year I want to spend a bit of time on resident species before the migrants got back, when you can get really nice recordings of those species.

So I've been recording stuff like blackwood pecker, looking around for things like. Dipper. I still need to record that species in song and have a few projects on the go. I do plan to get a lot more recorders down passively recording certain habitats this year  , as the spring moves on, I hope to get a lot more soundscapes back out again with the Sennheiser Array. Also this year, I want to actually concentrate on more individual species, maybe with the Tlingit Parabola and just isolate those sounds. So, I've got lots of things going on.  Now currently at the moment also I'm in the middle of trying to get my driving license here in Sweden. It's been quite tough. I've had to put certain things aside and just concentrate on that. But the rewards are going to be fantastic. It's going to allow me to get into some absolutely wonderful areas as soon as I get my hands on a driving license and get a bit more mobile.



Obviously, that will free me up and allow me to get into some incredible areas. And believe it or not, this podcast so far has all been recorded  by means of public transport. So it just goes to show what you can do. I'd say.  My carbon footprint as a boarder must be incredibly small for the last 50 years.

I basically used public transport my whole life. But having said that, now I feel with the electric car kind of boom and the hybrid car, I don't feel quite so guilty about maybe driving long distances. Maybe I should, maybe I shouldn't, I don't know. But it will allow me to get in and actually get into certain habitats I just can't access at the moment.

So a lot to look forward to. 

 Now before I move on to the main sound magazine of this episode, I just want to say that has occurred to me or has become very apparent to me that this podcast is starting to gain a bit of traction and that is all down to word of mouth from you guys, the listeners, and I want to thank you very much for that.

I think that's the way it's going to continue. I think it will build slowly. I'm perfectly prepared to just keep working and put out new seasons and I will need your help with that guys. So if you're enjoying the podcast, please do recommend it to people, maybe birders you know who might have an interest in bird sound recording basically anybody you think might be interested in the podcast.

Just recommend it to a few people, pass the word and hopefully we can build it up  and I can keep going with this thing. It's a lot of work as I say, I do very, very much enjoy it. But I do want to reach as many people as possible. 

 Now without any further ado, I'm going to. dive into the main sound magazine, which is pretty much a random selection of spring recordings from 2024.  Now, over the course of the spring in 2024, I was extremely busy. I was out every weekend and I got some wonderful recordings  now, as nice as it is to kind of secure enough audio in a single outing and get a very themed kind of sound magazine together. I do end up with a lot of random recordings, good quality recordings, and sometimes I just have to put them together in a kind of random fashion, but I think it works quite well.

  Spring is right on top of us now and I do hope this whets your appetite just to get out and enjoy the sounds of the natural world at that time of the year. It's a fantastic time of the year to be out field recording. So without any further ado, this is Random Spring Recordings in Sweden. 

 Now you're all very welcome once again to another sound magazine here at Wild Bird Acoustics. In this sound magazine, I'm going to be taking you through some random recordings, all of which were recorded over the course of the spring period in 2024.  Now I was very busy in 2024. I was out almost every weekend and quite often folks when you get out for a morning or an evening of sound recording.

You may not get 10 or 12 good quality recordings, but quite often you will come home with just a handful and sometimes these build up and it's quite nice I think to watch you run through these and share them with you. The result is it's quite often not a very themed sound magazine, but I think it's quite nice to jump between various species and locations. 

It's actually very nice as a sound recorder to go through your recordings from an entire year. And quite often I find I've actually forgotten about quite a few of them. You know, just a few hours out at a certain place, maybe you've forgotten about the outing completely. But of course, when you look through your audio at the end of the year, you come across some of these files again.

And some of them are quite nice. So without any further ado, just gonna get into them, and we'll share a few of them with you right now.  Now, the first recording I'm going to share with you is a very simple recording. It was taken at a place called Rundemeyer, which is at Tyriste National Park, just south of Stockholm City.

In this recording, you're going to hear a singing chaffinch. You're also gonna hear a calling, great spotted woodpecker, and in the background some fly by gray lag Goose. Have a listen. 

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. 

Now, 

the next recording I have for you came on a morning when I was digging out a goshawk And I spent about five or six hours, two weekends in a row, actually in this area, without any success with regard to Northern Gothok. But through about those mornings, I just constantly recorded with these Sennheiser 8020 microphones.

And picked up some nice distant common buzzards, just giving a bit of display one morning. It's quite a windy morning, there's a little bit of background noise, just wind through the trees, and some very distant traffic noise. It's quite a nice little recording, and quite short. This is Common Buzzard at Lappsharet, just north of Stockholm City. 

So, Common Buzzard displaying in the distance there. That was recorded on the 19th of March. And we're going to jump forward in time now to the 9th of June when I visited Landshut. And on the day it was quite windy and difficult to record. But what I'm going to play for you now is a nice recording of Common White Throat.

As I mentioned, it's a little bit windy, there's quite a lot of noise from wind through foliage, but nothing unnatural here. One of the things that makes it a little bit interesting is a little bit of mimicry here by this common white throat. See if you can pick that out. It's actually doing an impression of tree pippet in here.

So this is common white throat singing at Lansart. The 9th of June, 2024. And this focus was recorded with a Tilinga Parabola. 

Now early June can be a very good time to sound record here in Sweden. And one of the classic late arriving species, and it was the one I was down on Landsark to try and record, is Greenish Warbler. Now Greenish Warbler is a very scarce and local breeder here in Sweden. And it can be quite difficult to record as a result.

But there were, in fact, a number of birds on Land's Earth this year. And that's why I was on the island. And although it was quite windy, I got a wonderful recording of a singing male at the south end of the island on the 9th of June. It's quite windy and that leads to a nice ambience of the wind through the leaves.

As the word sings on territory, it's a particularly nice song. This, this is singing Greenwich Warbler at Landsort, Sweden on the 9th of June, 2024. 

So that's the shivering song of Greenwich Warbler there, and that was recorded with a Tlingit parabola also. Next, we're going to skip back to Nefors in Tirista National Park, a place where I spent a lot of time in early spring. And the reason I was out there was to try and record Black throated Diver.

Now that didn't go particularly well, but once again it meant that I had the Sennheiser Array set up and sitting there for large amounts of early morning periods. And I did get some nice audio as a result. Now what you're going to hear next are some overflying common crane arriving on migration in early spring.

Over Lake Nefors in Tirista National Park. Also in here you're going to hear a green sandpiper quite close to the start. Also migrating overhead. And also in the distance you will hear the displaying sound of black woodpecker.  So in some ways this is a passive recording, although I was present. And when I have a recorder sitting out for a large amount of time, in mornings such as this, if anything interesting flies over, I'll just make a note of the time and then later go back in and retrieve that bit of audio.

And it's very, very common to actually pick up audio of species that you're not expecting when you're sitting around waiting for certain species to call or display. And this is a case in point. Once again, this is Common Crine at Nifors and Tyriste National Park in April 2024. 

Now, the next recording is actually of, for many of you, I would imagine a very common species, and that is Common Linnet. Here in Sweden, Linnet is actually quite a local breeder. And incredibly, I actually hadn't recorded the song up until this spring.  Now, as mentioned, in June, I was down in Land's Arch looking for Greenish Warbler.

But I also got this bonus recording of a singing male in it. And the bird was just sitting quietly in some low sycamore, just singing away. It was a little bit distant, but I had the Tilinga parabola with me, which always helps to amplify sound, and I got quite a nice recording of the bird. Again, it was a little bit windy on the day, but generally speaking, I was quite happy to get this recording.

Once again, this is comlinit. The date is the 9th of June, 2024, and this was recorded at Landsort. 

Now, something a little bit different for you folks. It's a mammal this time, and this is a passive recording of Red Fox. And in March on Landsort, Red Fox are very, very vocal. And I got a number of nice recordings this year of Red Fox in mating display. In this recording, you will hear the Red Fox kind of croon as well as the more wailing calls that they give.

They're quite noisy folks. This recording was made with an Acoustic Devices SM Mini Recorder, recorded passively, and this took place in the middle of the night in late March on Landsort. So I'll play that for you now. This is Red Fox. 

Now I'm going to take you all the way back down to Lanzarote again, and this was another day trip I made on the 21st of April,  2024. And having collected some audio from my recorder on the island, I just had a look around and later in the afternoon, I came across a small group of redwing and they were just resting and feeding in a damp area in some alder trees.

And I just got the sling of parabola on them and got some lovely recordings of their calls. Now, in the background here, it's always nice to get an ambience of the Baltic Sea. And that's what happened. At the beginning here, you can hear greylag goose. And also in the background, black headed gull. There's a colony not far from this location.

And this was one of those recordings I'd completely forgotten about. On the day, I just came across these birds and pointed the parabola at them. So this is a case in point. If you're ever out in the field, you come across something interesting or you think something interesting is about to happen. Just point your recorder at it, and you can always come back to the audio later.

And it's always very nice to unearth a nice bit of audio like this, that you had completely forgotten about.  So this is a small group of staging Red Wing at Landsort in April 2024. 

Now the next species I have for you is Songthrush. And this was recorded in Norrie Everfelt Head on the 1st of May, 2024. Now I came across this bird in woodland and I didn't have much gear with me. So I recorded this with a Clippy EM microphone. It's a mono recording and I just used a Zoom HN1 recorder.

One of the cheapest recorders on the market. It just goes to show that you can get some lovely atmospheric recordings with the simplest of gear. And that's why I wanted to play this for you now. These birds are absolutely wonderful songsters. They're one of my favourite species and over the years I've been building up a library of various birds in full song.

It's quite interesting to compare these birds, especially from different areas or different regions. The song is never quite the same. So, in short, Songthrush is a very interesting species to study as a sound recorder. Now, before I get too carried away, I'll play the recording for you. This is a very nice recording of Songthrush.

In full song, from Norrie Yerva Feltet in Spring 2024. 

Um, Um, Uh, Uh, Um, Um, Um, Um, 

Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. 

Yeah. 

Uh, Um, Uh, Um, Uh, Uh, Um, Uh, 

Uh, 

I don't know if you can see it, but this is the um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, 

Now, next up, a somewhat unusual recording for me, and one which came as a total surprise. Now this recording came out in the Guesta Reserve. I was out there at dusk. I was hoping to record a great snipe that was reported in the area. I had no success with that, but I did actually spend a lot of time running around after Tawny Owl in display.

Now, that was quite difficult and I didn't quite succeed getting the recording I wanted to. But once again, it meant I had my Sennheiser array kind of sat out recording in areas for long amounts of time. And whilst I was standing there hoping that a Tawny Owl would actually fly in and start to call, I was quite amazed when the following flew over my head calling, and I was so happy to actually hear this species flying over.

on migration whilst out in the field. This is the call of Spotted Craig on active migration. And it went right over my head, quite close to the recorder. And I was delighted to find that I got a reasonable recording. Have a listen, folks. 

Next up, a very simple recording of a very common species. The species is Eurasian Wren. The bird is in full song, and I picked this up with the Sennheiser Array at Tyrris's Slot in Sweden in early May 2024. Have a listen, folks. 

So, um, 

Now we're going to start thinking about wrapping up this sound magazine, and I do hope you have enjoyed the random recordings here. The next one is a woodland soundscape. This one is quite interesting in a number of ways. Again, it was a scene I didn't expect to come across. Quite often now, if I'm out anywhere, I have a Zoom HN1 recorder and just a clippy monomic in my bag.

Even if I'm just making a quick evening trip somewhere and it records some lovely audio.  Now, one of the things to notice about this recording is,  for me, the annoyance of noise pollution. It's not too bad in this recording, but even still, I just noticed this so much. And in the distance, you can just hear that distant hum of a road.

There's a little bit of construction work going on at times. It's not too invasive, but if you could actually take that out of this recording. They'd be such a beautiful woodland scene, and it's such a shame sometimes that it's so difficult to find places that are free of noise pollution. And later in the spring, that's what led me to get out more and more at night and just before dawn.

And more of that later, folks, in the podcast. But for now, this is a very nice scene of various species singing in woodland. Now, the main species here is wood warbler, and this was the first bird I found of the spring. on Territory Singing, and it's a species I always like to record every year. So, I put the recorder down with that in mind, but also in the background here, there's a bit of fresh water nearby, and you can hear common snipe calling.

Half inch archery calling towards the start and middle of this recording. There's chaff inch in the background, black headed gull. Throughout, you can hear red wing and song in the background. Eurasian blue tit and grey legged goose also. There's a feeding green woodpecker at some points. Blackbird and Song, Songthrush, Starling, and so on.

So all in all, a wonderful woodland soundscape. So this again is a longer recording. It's just over five minutes long, and I hope you do enjoy it. We'll close out with this. This is a soundscape of wood warbler and other woodland species at Norrie Yerba Feltette. In two thousand and twenty four. 

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Uh huh. Yeah. Yeah. 

Yeah. Mhm. Yeah. Mhm. Yeah. Mhm. Yeah. 

Yeah. Yeah. Mhm. Mhm. Yeah. Yeah. Mhm. Yeah. Mhm. 

So once again, I'd like to thank everybody for tuning in to listen to this sound magazine. That was a random mish mash of various recordings from all around Stockholm City in Spring 2024. Some interesting species and recordings in there, and I thought they were just too good not to watch you share with the listeners.

Once again, thanks everybody for listening to me here at Wild Bird Acoustics. It's very much appreciated. We'll see you soon. 

 Now there you go. That's Wild Bird Acoustics, another sound magazine. I hope you have enjoyed it.  Now, just a quick reminder, as previously mentioned, if you're enjoying the podcast, just try and recommend it to a few fellow boarders or a few people, you know, who just might enjoy the podcast, we'll see you soon for the next episode here at wild bird acoustics. Take it easy.  

 So that brings us to the end of another episode of Wild Bird Acoustics, and I hope you've enjoyed it. As always, you can find us on YouTube by simply searching for Wild Bird Acoustics. We do have a mailing list also, and if you want to be part of that, folks, you can drop us an email at wildbirdacoustics at gmail.

com.  Now, all feedback is gratefully received here at the podcast, and if you'd like the right review of the podcast, you can do so at the Buzzsprout header page. In addition, if you'd like to make a small financial donation to the podcast, you can do so using the buy me a coffee button, and you'll find that also on the Buzzsprout header page. 

We'll be back in a couple of weeks with more from Wild Bird Acoustics. Until then, take it easy folks. And as always, don't be afraid to get out into the field and relax and just listen to the wildlife out there. Maybe even do a little bit of field recording of your own.  We'll talk to you soon folks. Take it easy.

That's all from Wild Bird Acoustics.