We have had Blackbirds in our garden every year for many years now but this year there are more than ever. A family of 5 lost one of their crew to one of the local cat recently but its youngest sibling is still around and enjoying the seed we put out for it and the other birds.
You can still see the yellow border to its beak showing that perhaps calling it a teenager is going a little beyond its age.
I like nothing better than to watch and listen to them outside my studio door. Below is one of the recordings I made of Blackbirds a couple of years ago.
Last week I was up on top of Mynydd y Graig in the Mawr ward of Swansea. It is up above the Lliw reservoirs into which the River Lliw flows. It was very windy up there but the views are great and the sound of the Skylarks lifts the heart every time.
It was a very hazy day but the views from the hills were still great.
Swansea Walking Forum meet once a month and although this has often been a matter of sitting around a table and sharing the news of different walking groups in the area, this week we met at Garnswllt Activity Centre and went for a walk first. What an excellent idea! Climbing up the Garnswllt end of Graig Fawr, we took nearly 2 hours to complete a circuit that provided beautiful hazy views across the hills and over Ammanford. Following the walk we were able to sit down with a cup of tea and biscuits in the Activity Centre which has been excellently converted from the old village school.
It was a beautiful day and the larks were singing their hearts out up above us. I had taken my recording kit and held back a little in order to record the sounds of without the chatter of the group in the background. Listen to the sounds below – either click the play button or the mp3 file name.
This week’s featured StillWalks video is set a few weeks ahead of the current date in terms of the time of year but the flowers and activity of the birds celebrate the beautiful sunny weather of Spring with gusto and are a welcome change to the wild, wet and windy weather we had through Winter.
The video above is in 480p quality. You can use the Donate button below to pay however much you want and receive a high quality (720HD) download of this week’s featured StillWalks video – “Garden Park Walk – Spring” which features Clyne Gardens in Swansea, South Wales. Click the image above to watch the video. DVD Collections are also available to order in the StillWalks Shop.
I had forgotten that if I am posting sound files, I need to embed them in the post if they are to be seen in an email. The post that went out this morning only had the two sound clips below linked to the StillWalks SoundCloud account. That is fine for many of my followers but for those who receive and read the posts in an email, here are the two sound clips recorded at Llys Nini Animal Centre woodland last week. Like I said, the birds sing regardless of conditions and traffic and care not what recording equipment you may use.
A beautiful saturday morning is not the best time to choose to go sound recording on the Gower Peninsula. Swansea airport may be small but when the weather is good at the weekend, it would seem there are plenty of aviators who want to get into their airplanes.
It wasn’t just the small planes that were out – the vapour trails in this photo prove the number of inbound flights to the UK first thing on a Saturday morning. They weren’t the only ones enjoying the sunshine. The sound clip below proves that the birds were out in force as well. Click to play or listen to it on SoundCloud.
It was 6.22 AM when these sounds were recorded on my walk through Troserch Woodland. I had thought I might upload the StillWalks video that this weeks posts have been illustrating, but it’s not quite ready yet. Getting the sequence of images right and the sounds working well and logically with them, is important if the final result is going to do its job – give you a sense of place so that you can imagine being there.
Following this week’s posts of phone photos from Fforest and the issues that go along with the processing of them for use in a StillWalks video, I have now reviewed the sounds recorded on my phone from the same walk and for me, this too leaves something to be desired. Below is a sample clip – towards the end of it there is some lovely birdsong!
I used the free RODE app for the recording but not the mic they make to go with it. Much as I would like to have one of these, the main purpose of my trials with phone photography and recording is to assess the quality that can be produced at the basic (free) level and compare it to using StillWalks’ higher end equipment.
I have finished going through the images for a StillWalks video and based on them alone, I would suggest that the finished product will be best viewed on a phone or tablet. The sound, however, may be more of a problem. It is likely that most people would not be aware that the sound quality is not up to scratch and that is understandable and no fault of anyone’s.
It comes down to what I call the “Wow Factor”. It is easy to accept lower quality in something if you have nothing to compare it with. However, the better the quality, the greater the impact or Wow Factor – whether it is recognized as such or not.
It is probably the sound that does most to take you to the location of a StillWalk and so it is important to me to do what I can to ensure this is as good as I can get it. The proof, as they say, will be in the pudding! I will post the finished video on the blog when it is completed and you can judge for yourselves.
