About a year ago I went down to Naples, Florida to record at Corkscrew Swamp and was met with mixed results. The area is overrun with retirement communities, which means air traffic and vehicular traffic. I don’t know why I thought this year would be better, but unfortunately it wasn’t. I was met with the same challenges and was unable to get clean recordings for more than a few minutes at a time. I am still sifting through the raw material, but one of the highlights I have come across is this duet between Carolina Wrens, which are pretty predominant in the swamp. In the distance you can also hear a small scrub jay squeaking away. (Thanks to Martyn Stewart of http://naturesound.org for the bird identification.)
Regardless of the noise challenges, Corkscrew Swamp is truly an amazing place to see the sun come up. There are over 3 miles of boardwalk that enable one to traverse normally inhospitable areas. I managed to get rather close to a group of wood storks, but my recording gear was set up elsewhere. When I returned to capture their harsh nasal squawks, they had taken off. I waited for quite a while to see if they would return, but I ran out of luck. By the time it hit 9:00 AM or so, the air traffic had kicked into high gear; nothing like geriatric travellers to put a damper on your field recordings.
Recording Geek Note: Rig consists of Schoeps CMC5 setup for MS, with the MK4 as the mid. It was all tracked to a Sound Devices 744T at 24/96.
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how did you travel to florida, michael? did you manage to find some mode of transport which would avoid adding to the noise-pollution problem?
Nope, I had to take a plane.
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Nice duetting carolina wrens, pleasant stereo image…
I have photos of the man sized meal hawk. too bad you didnt record it.
we don’t have these birds here in Holland 😉
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