Birch Meadow Voices; The Sandemar Files #3

In this episode we return to Sandemar Reserve to listen to the wonderful sounds of the site in late spring, a time when this reserve is bursting with life. In this episode we explore the sounds of the flooded coastal meadow at this incredible location and listen to some remarkable recordings of various bird species. Here on these wet grasslands, several species of wader return to breed each year and in 2025 I recorded some incredible audio by means of passive recording. Join me as I share this intimate audio, often at incredible close quarters, in order to gain a glimpse into the secret world of breeding wader species. During the course of the month, some remarkable sequences of audio were recorded, offering a window into the incredible scenes that take place in this habitat under cover of darkness, as well as revealing remarkable early morning drama due to the presence of predatory bird species at the reserve.

Transcript

 You are 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 sound magazine here at Wild Bird Acoustics, and this is the third installment of these Sandmeyer files. As you'll all know by now. I spent the entire month of May recording at the site passively and actively, and I have a lovely sound magazine here as a result, some fantastic audio and we'll get stuck straight into it.

 Now the first audio file I have for you is an evening file. It was recorded just before 10 o'clock in the evening on the 17th of May, 2025. It's wonderful. It's an alarming blackboard, very close to the recorder. And it's also a lovely evening soundscape. In the background overhead, you can hear common snip displaying.

There's woodcock roading as well, which is quite wonderful. You can also hear distant red shank, common goal, and also some barking road here. So this is an alarming common blackbird at Sand mark Canal.

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Now that's a lovely passive recording. I think you'll agree. That was made with an SM mini recorder, quite close to Santa Mark Canal in the Woodlands. And I have another one from the same area. Now, this one on the 4th of June, 2025, and it's a couple of stross of Cuckoo song. And listen carefully for some chuckling sounds just before the TROs begin.

The first stro in particular in the background here, there's loads going on. There's. Garden warbler, chaff engine songs, spotted fly catcher calls, various tits, wood, pigeon stocked dove. Does herding go overhead, distant Canada goose, and it all makes for an absolutely wonderful soundscape. This is common cuckoo, again, a passive recording with the SM mini recorder.

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 Now the next recording comes from the flooded meadows beside the sea. A wonderful dawn recording to begin with. The main species calling here is common gold.

They're clearly upset with something and it's possible there's whitetailed eagle in the area.  Quite often just sitting out in the meadows hunting young geese and lapwing.  There's also blackhead gold and lapwing calling, as well as the distant display of common E, and that provides a wonderful background also.

Here you will hear the Don calls of. Common crane in the distance and some barnacle goose. And then after about two minutes, a very close common snipe giving display, possibly from a nearby fence post. This is a quite wonderful soundscape, just over three minutes long. I hope you enjoy it. Have a listen folks.

  

 📍 Now. Next up, a recording of Common Rose Finch. This one was an active recording made by myself with a tilling P on the morning of the 24th of May, 2025. It's quite a nice recording. It was very, very windy. There's a lot of ambience and wind here in the background through the foliage in the trees, a singing Common Rose Finch, the main subject.

Listen in the background for River Warbler, a bird that was present right through the end of May. Ren giving a lot of song in the background here, garden Warbler, and also towards the end. Goldfinch a wonderful recording. This is Common Rose Finch.

 Terima kasih telah

Terima telah menonton 📍 

Now my passive recorders out on the meadows. Got a lot of strange common snipe action and they give a lot of strange calls. And one of them is this strange chuckling call that they quite often give in flight. And I look. This call, you'll hear it after about 24 seconds in this recording. Also here, lap wing, distant arctic turn.

Common goal. And Snipe also overhead giving flight display as well. But have a listen for Snipe going by at about 24 seconds at a burst of speed, giving a wonderful kind of chuckling call. This is common Snipe at Sander.

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Next for you is common cuckoo. Once again. This one actively with the tilling up problem. I was out there on the 10th of May and got a wonderful close recording of a singing male in the background. Again, this lap wing and chaffing distant will of war and distant common boy throat. This is a quite wonderful, clear recording as always with the lingo P.

It's a fantastic piece of kit and it amplifies the sound somewhat. So two strokes here of common cuckoo. A male bird in full song.

  

  📍 Now the next recording I have for you is Garden Warbler In Song. The Bird begins after about 24 seconds in this recording. Again, it's an SMEE passive recording, and it is quite wonderful. I quite like these passive recordings. It gives a real sense of intimacy and one of the best things about them is that you are not present the recorder.

That is, you're not disturbing anything. So all of the vocalizations are completely. Natural and it feels like sometimes you're just kind of invisibly. Sitting there listening to this. Eve is dropping as it were on the natural world and it's quite wonderful. 

 Now in the background here, there's so much going on. Blue tit and song, also Willow warbler Blackbird. In the distance there's distant barnacle goose ran giving song, a distant cuckoo chaffing as well in the woodlands. But the main subject here, very close to the recorder is garden warbler. There's also other birds flitting around beside the recorder.

And we'll have a listen to this now. It's a lovely recording guard warbler near the canal at Standar Reserve.

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 Now over the course of May, 2025, I managed to secure a huge amount of Garden War audio. There's no way I'm gonna play all that for you in this season of the podcast. But I probably have 50 or 60 files of various garden wars coming through and singing.

And here's another one for you, actively recorded with a tinga problem. In the background, you can hear common wide throat. Listen for common rose fi also here. Rain and gulf inch with a distance. Stock dove also. Now this particular bird was quite scratchy, a little bit harsh, and I wasn't entirely sure for a while until the bird showed itself it was a garden warbler.

I'm getting better at these. After spending the spring on boat species, they are still very, very difficult and not to be taken lightly. This is Guard Mor in song in Stegen at Sandara Reserve on the 24th of May, 2025.

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 Now Garden ER is seeing an awful lot early in the morning and the evenings, but they also do call, and the call is completely different to the closely related Black cap and indeed lesser White Road, which both give kind of harsh tech calls. The call of Garden ER is quite different.

It's very often given on the breeding grounds, but they do seem to be very, very silent on passage I've noticed over the years, and generally stay silent, but they do call. And if you hear it, it's extremely easy to identify these species.  Now a short recording here with a constantly calling garden warbler.

And also here you will have to distinguish between long tail tit and the check, check, check, check, check calls, the constant calls of garden warbler. So have a listen to this folks. This is the call, the kind of harsh grating call of garden warbler. And this bird is giving constantly in this recording.

Have a listen.

  

 📍 Now another active recording with the Tinga.  So what you're gonna hear now is a group party of long tailed tits. There was at least seven or eight young and a couple of adults moving around the reserve being fed by the adults.

 These birds never stop calling and it's quite a wonderful sound. So what you're gonna hear now is long tailed hit. A family party. Towards the end of the recording, there is some chaffing action, a bit of singing chaffing and a few calls, but mainly here. Very, very focused with the Tinga.

Pbla are the calls of a long tailed tit.

  

 📍 Next for you, a lovely recording of Northern Lap Wing and Eurasian Skylark in song. When I left the SM Minis out on the flooded meadows, I knew I was going to get a lot of audio of both of these species, but it was quite wonderful to get it back, go through the files and just take out some of this wonderful audio.

I'm gonna share a short recording with you now. Just some northern lapping very close to the recorder,  all the time in the background, Eurasian Skylar is singing, have a listen.

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Now Northern Lap Wing is a wonderful species for the field recorder. I particularly love their calls. It's just has such a P OFM quality to it. And their wings, as you heard in the last field recording, also make this wonderful sound when they're in display and. In the evenings, sometimes when it's still, these birds get very, very active, very, very vocal, and on some evenings, the soundscape at Sand Mar is absolutely wonderful.

I'm gonna play a recording now of such a soundscape and mainly it's the calls of northern lap wing just before dusk. Now in the background here,  you can hear stock of at the start in nearby woodlands, but as it's on the wetlands. It's all about common snip displaying red shank and also here common ring plover.

 There's a few gray lag as well in the background, gray lag goose, but generally speaking, this is an absolutely incredible soundscape, exactly what I was after when I actually planted the SM mini recorders in the first place. And it was worth it just to get recordings like this. Enjoy this everybody.

This is Northern lap wing.

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Now we're gonna move on to a ion species that is still fairly abundant here in Sweden, although it is dropping in numbers, it's declining all over Europe. In fact, quite alarmingly in some places. The species I'm talking about is red back strike. Now Redback Strike is quite difficult to record in many ways.

They're only really vocal when they first return. And on the 10th of May, I was at Santa Mar with the Tinga and I managed to get these calls of a newly returned male, an adult male redback strike. Now listen for the harsh nasal calls of the bird on territory and also towards the end. It's quite curious with this species, you think you may be listening to common snipe, but this is actually the call of Redback strike male.

Very, very common in May, and it's. Practically inseparable to my ear, at least from common snipe. So have a listen. There's a little bit going on in the background. There's a background here of yellow hammer, willow warbler, the kick calls of great spot of the woodpecker, and also a singing stock dove, but quite obvious, the main species.

Here it is, the nasal calls of a male red backed sh strike.

 Terima kasih telah! 📍 

 We are going to stay in Redback Strike. Fast forward a week in time, another active recording with the Tinga Pbla. This time from closer range, the same nasal calls from a very close Redback strike and boy, I have to work for this recording. The board gave me the runaround big time, and eventually I managed to track it down to a small blackthorn bush.

The word was right in the middle, giving these calls. Again, this is male red backed strike.

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 Now I'm gonna go back to River Warbler. You heard it briefly in the background in the common Rose Fi recording earlier. And I'm just gonna play you a better recording of the species made on quite a windy morning.

It was the 28th of May and this was made with the Tinga problem. In the background is a garden warbler singing pretty much constantly now. The river warbler I found on the 24th of May, stayed well into June, and it was lovely to have the bird in the area, and I got a few nice recordings as a result. I'm going to play one now from quite close range.

This is River Warbler. Reading a wonderful sound, sounds like a cricket, or as I've said before, an old sewing machine. A very rare species around Stockholm, only a handful every year, so great to have one on site. This is River Warbler, a quite wonderful sound.

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The next species I have for you is common white throat and over on the pathway at Stegen. I had another deployment for a week and in a bush beside the recorder for the entire week, there was a male white throat and it was constantly singing and giving various calls. I got some wonderful audio from this bird.

I still haven't decided what to do with some of it. I'm gonna play you this recording now. It's a singing bird. Followed by some scolding calls, which is a quite wonderful call of the species. Very, very familiar. I'm sure too many of the listeners who do a lot of boarding, especially near the coastline, and it's one of my favorite calls.

Now, as I say, I have a lot of audio of the species  I have quite some long snatches of mimicry. The bird just sitting quietly giving song in the bush. Mimicking a lot of species, and I will decide what to do with that audio in the future. I've been thinking about maybe doing something on mimicry as well in a separate episode.

I've also got a lot of common Red Start audio, which I want to delve into, so stay with me on that, folks. But for now, here's a lovely recording of Common White Route early in the morning, in early May at Sand Mar Reserve. First up, it's the song and then the scolding call of the species.

 Terima telah

Terima

telah menonton

Terima telah menonton

Terima telah menonton 📍 

 Now, next up, it's a very common species, willow warbler, but I really love to record these when they return to the breeding grounds in spring.

It's a wonderful, wonderful song, so mellow and descending, and I never tore of it. I found this bird at a place called Hagar at Sand Mar on the 24th of May. It was just singing in a very, very quiet area at the back of a clearing, and I got a lovely. Clear recording of the bird. Not a lot going on in the background here.

It's with the tinga. Very, very focused. So the main subject here, just enjoy the song of Willa Warbler, a newly returned bird in spring.

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Now, the next recording I have for you was of a very, very common species. It is starting now. I was out at Santa Mar on the 31st of May with Jesse Bigger. We had a wonderful morning just pottering around the site, just looking at various birds, and we were sitting in the observation tower towards the end of the morning.

When we noticed a large flock of common sterlings. Now what happens when the juveniles leave the nest is they tend to get together in flocks and they will sit around waiting for the adults to come and feed them, and they had picked this huge blackthorn bush on the edge of the flooded meadows to do so.

Now the feeding nearby was very good. There was a lot of adults on the meadows, and what they were doing was returning and feeding the birds all of the time, and the racket from the bush was quite incredible. Now I decided after a while to go down with the Linga and actually record the birds, and it turned out this is quite a wonderful recording.

Just a lot going on. Juvenile starlings being fed by adult birds flying in and out all of the time. And I'm gonna leave you with this recording, folks for this sound magazine. This is Juvenile Common Starlings at Santa Mar Reserve being fed by adults.

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So there you go. That's the third installment of these Sand Mar files. Some wonderful audio on there. I hope you find it very relaxing. These longer form sound magazines. Just to kick back and listen to these sounds of nature and Sand Mar Reserve in May is one of the best places a field recorder could possibly be.

Now as always, thank you very, very much for tuning in guys. It is always appreciated and I do hope you have enjoyed the podcast on this particular occasion. That's all for me, your host, Alan Dalton. I'll sign out for now and we'll see you next time here at Wild Bird Acoustics.



 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 Wild Bird acoustics@gmail.com.

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We will 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.