Ah, it is so good to be home!

After our four month field trip in Turkey, Sweden and the UK, Sarah and I arrived back to our bush home last Wednesday evening. We were tired, but happy to be back in familiar surroundings.

We left one of the hottest summers on record in the UK, and arrived home to freezing cold nights. Our first morning dawned crisp and misty, with dew on every leaf, and the sun not coming through until mid morning.

Even at this very early point in the season, the birdsong is ebullient. This recording is of a mixed-species feeding flock moving through the forest on our first frosty morning home.

As we stood outside in the bush, breathing in the heady scent of eucalyptus, a small flock of Swift Parrots torpedoed out of the scrub past us. A lovely welcome home from these rare winter visitors!

It’s 10.30 pm, and Andrew and I are about to head off to bed, when we hear a soft thump on the window pane.

From experience we know that a sound like this can only be made by either a large moth attracted by our house lights, or more excitingly, an owl hunting them. On past occasions we have found a Barn Owl outside picking off a Bogong Moth, and on another found a tiny Owlet Nightjar perched on the window ledge, peering in our bedroom window at us.

It is such a rare treat to see these nocturnal birds, so we are keen to see what may have made this noise.

Opening the door, we cautiously move outside, scanning the ground but see nothing nearby. We are about to head back inside when I casually look up.

“Don’t move! …” I tell Andrew.

Perched atop the garden umbrella next to him is a Tawny Frogmouth, Podargus strigoides. If he reached out he could almost touch it. It sits alert and unfazed, its yellow eyes glowing in the gloom, as we back off to get torches and camera.

After flapping to a nearby tree, our Frogmouth settles in, not seeming to mind being the centre of our attention for the next hour. It is a privilege to be so close as he preens and snaps at insects in the torchlight.

Click on images to see at full size.

Beautiful marbled textures in the plumage…

Face showing those remarkable forehead plumes, which it is thought assist during aerial feeding by channelling ‘near-misses’ into the mouth.

Momentarily distracted by a moth flying past…

Preening…

…ah! That’s better now!

Giving us The Look…

Alert to every rustle on the ground

All a bit of a yawn…

Tawny Frogmouths are sometimes erroneously called ‘Mopokes’. But a Mopoke is more correctly the Boobook Owl, which makes the well-known “Mor-pork” call. Frogmouths sound quite different, making repetitive, low booming calls that carry for long distances, and can often be heard throughout the night.

A Tawny Frogmouth features on our album ‘An Evening in the Australian Bush’, and here you can listen to a short sample of one calling in the depths of a bushland night.

More about this album.

Listen here

Subsong is not often heard, probably because it is both quiet and only occasional. However summer is the right time of year to hear it, because it is believed to be associated with song learning in juvenile birds. Yes, it is baby talk.

Or so it is thought. I am a little puzzled by my observations though, firstly that the repertoire of subsong seems more developed and diverse than adult song, and that I have seen birds in adult plumage also singing like this.

One of the curiosities I’ve noticed with subsong, is that it is often heard in particularly windy conditions. Why, I have no idea, but I’m not the only one to notice this. Maybe birds like to sing with a mask of background sound (as with the Grey thrush and the cicadas) so they won’t be heard so easily, although who they would be shy of being overheard by is anyone’s guess.

Maybe birds just like ’singin’ in the wind’!

Here is a Pied Butcherbird singing in central Australia in very blustery conditions.

Having grown up in the heart of urban Sydney, I thought of these lordly birds as something very exotic, and that I would be lucky to ever see one. My first fleeting sighting then, in outback Queensland, had me excitedly tracking the poor creature through the tropical scrub in the blistering heat of midday for half an hour.

Subsequently we found them to be relatively common, and over time have had many opportunities to photograph them. They call only rarely, and we think it is unlikely they will turn up on one of our nature recordings in the future. So instead, here is a small gallery of images of this magnificent bird.

Here is a male in full breeding display posture, with throat sack extended and tail feathers cocked. Note the breast-sac feathers that trail down to the ground, and are swung conspicuously and slowly from side to side while the bill is pointed skywards.

Bustards have to run heavily to gain airspeed, but once airborne they fly with powerful wingbeats and effortless grace over the grassy plains that are their home.

Australia has a large family of Honeyeater species, and many have a unique pre-dawn repertoire. These early-light songs are different to their daytime calls, and often serenely beautiful, especially when heard in chorus. White-plumed, Spiney-cheeked and White-fronted Honeyeaters particularly come to mind.

Tawny-crowns though, hold a special place for us. Graham Pizzey’s field guide describes their song as ‘beautiful’ and ‘flutey’, comprising of ‘liquid, metallic phrases’. As lovely as the songs of one bird are, when you get to hear many of them singing across the landscape, well, it is quite something else.

I first heard the Tawny-crown’s dawn songs over ten years ago. In the Little Desert region of western Victoria, I found myself in the half-light, entranced by something utterly unexpected; the heathland around me awakening to a symphony of bell-like, tinkling songs.

The recording I made that morning became the concluding track of our ‘Favourite Australian Birdsong’ album. For me it summed up why I had chosen to make nature sound recording my work; the sheer beauty of sound that nature could create, and my wish that more people could hear it.

Click here to listen to a 3 minute sample from ‘Favourite Australian Birdsong’ – the Tawny-crowns can be heard toward the end. (More about this album here)

Now its not that Tawny-crowns are all that rare – they can be found in suitable heathland habitat throughout southern Australia – but for some reason it was to be several years before we encountered them again. During a brief visit to Stirling Range National Park in the south of Western Australia, I came across a patch of woodland where they seemed quite common.

On that occasion I didn’t have the time to follow up and try for an early morning recording. Now we had returned, and planned our early departure to catch their dawn singing.

But the weather was definitely not co-operating. In the tent, we discussed abandoning the attempt, aware that we had an hour of cautious driving in the dark to get to the remote western end of the park where I’d previously encountered them. We could only hope the weather would improve, and rationalise that at least we may hear them, even if recording was useless.

So we set out, but as we drove we could see the roadside bushes being thrashed around, with no sign of the wind abating. On arrival, we found a sheltered spot and got out to listen. The wind seemed a little subdued, but any optimism was soon dismissed as another band of rain passed over. By the time it eased off, the pale light of dawn was outlining low clouds scudding across the sky, and the first birds had begun calling distantly. Among them, about a kilometre away, was the distinctive voice of a Tawny-crowned Honeyeater.

Now I don’t normally go chasing a particular species, let alone an individual bird. I record soundscapes, and so usually look for a good patch of habitat where I can just relax and let nature sing into my microphones. But this morning was a little different. We hopped back in the car and drove on to where we estimated the Tawny-crown was calling. I figured that recording would be a foregone exercise, so just hearing them would have to suffice.

The wind blustered around us as we alighted. We were in an open spot, with just low shrubs and tussock grasses, which were being thrown around animatedly. However it was perfect Tawny-crown country, and to our delight, nearby not one but several Tawny-crowns had begun singing.

Well, the recording may be crap, and my microphone tripod might get blown over, but I determined to give it a go anyway. Grabbing my gear I set off into the gloom, finding my way into the scrub via a faint kangaroo pathway, and settling myself in the lee of a shrub to record.

Listen here to what I heard.

I guess I was absorbed in listening, enjoying the Tawny-crown’s combined melodies and noting that a Splendid Fairy-wren had also begun calling nearby. I didn’t notice at first that the wind had abated considerably. The clouds continued scudding, but the bushes had become still and the wind’s roar distant. Meanwhile the Tawny-crowns sung on.

At one point, a soft scrunch behind me caused me to turn around, and I found myself eye to eye with a Kangaroo just a few meters away, its ears cocked cautiously toward me. I was standing right next to its pathway, and I imagined it having a “what are you doing on my track?” moment. I turned away so the animal could feel less threatened and make its retreat. Eventually it hopped off to one side, making a wide arc around me to regain its pathway further on. You can hear it toward the end of the recording.

I’m sure many of you reading this can relate to nature’s moments of serendipity, and the patience (or just plain persistence!) to be there and experience them. Sarah and I feel that our morning with these etherally-voiced Tawny-crowned Honeyeaters was one of them.

The Painted Button Quail, Turnix varia, is a native quail of the drier eucalypt forests of eastern and southern Australia. Whilst they are widespread, they are quite uncommon, and their camouflage plumage makes actually seeing them in the bush a rare treat.

Our first encounter with them was fifteen years ago, whilst sound recording for one of our early nature albums; ‘A Morning in the Australian Bush’. In the Capertee Valley of NSW I recorded what I thought to be a pigeon, giving a series of resonant booming calls from low bushes. We didn’t actually see the bird, but it sounded so like the Common Bronzewing pigeon, that it never occurred to me to question. It was only a year later, after we had completed and published this album, that a naturalist friend confirmed that what we’d recorded was actually a Painted Button Quail.

Here is that recording of the Quail, as heard on the album. (The accelerating call, gradually rising in pitch, is diagnostic. Also to be heard in this sample is the clear, descending whistle of a Horsfield’s Bronze Cuckoo)

A few years later we bought a bush block and built our home in central Victoria. Imagine our delight to discover that we had these delicate little birds resident in the bushland around us. Not only in the forest, but sheltering by our back door, trotting past our office window, or taking a short cut through our car port!

It was our first occasion to really observe them, and what beautiful little creatures they are!

A female ‘PBQ’

Usually seen in pairs, they are quick and nervous in their movements, darting off or taking wing at the slightest disturbance – which is very wise for a small ground-dwelling bird! In Australia we have several introduced predators that these quail have had to learn to live with; foxes and cats being the most threatening. Add to that the distressing fact that over the years we have found almost as many dead quail by the side of rural roads as we’ve ever seen alive, and we have come to feel these birds are hanging onto existence by sheer tenacity.

For several years we enjoyed seeing them around our home and bush, and then we stopped seeing them at all. We put this down to either predation or drought. For years now, south-east Australia has been in the grip of one of its worst droughts on record. The unprecedented bush fires in Victoria have made headlines around the world, the bush is dry and colourless, and urban water storages are at all-time lows. Not seeing our lovely quail was just another depressing sign.

But two months ago, they reappeared! We first noticed them in a disused garden patch near the house, and most mornings since we can see them among the dried grasses that have taken over the old garden beds.

Male Painted Button Quail at a nesting scrape

This morning I spent some time quietly watching them feeding and scuffling around. They have a delightful habit of digging little nesting scrapes in soft earth, and one can see where they have been by the lunar landscape of delicate depressions they create. They are so animated, like little feathery balls on yellow legs. So quick and restless are they that getting a photo without blur is not easy! At one point I must have moved slightly, and they suddenly scampered off into the undergrowth. In doing so they slick their feathers down, no longer plump little feather balls, they run head outstretched like arrows to safety.

So a plump quail is a happy quail. Hooray for tenacity!

The nature sound album ‘A Morning in the Australian Bush’ features a beautiful diversity of Australian birdsong, and is available on CD or by digital download from our website: www.listeningearth.com

It is quite common for them to do this on well-illuminated moonlit evenings. Not only Magpies, but other birds such as Willy Wagtails, are well-known for this behaviour. What is interesting with Mapgies is that they have quite a different call nocturnally than their usual day-time calls.

Magpies are regarded by many as having one of the most beautiful songs in the bush, a liquid series of rippling notes, sort of an extended warble. Being a bird found throughout the continent, their calls can be thought of as a characteristically Australian bush sound.

Magpies have thus featured on several of our albums, such as ‘A Morning in the Australian Bush’, ‘Favourite Australian Birdsong’ and ‘Birdsong Virtuosos of Australia’.

Nevertheless, we’ve had requests from listeners who were hoping for an album dedicated just to Magpies – a celebration of Magpies.

At first I thought such a project could be an overdose of Magpies! However on listening through some of our recordings, I realised that they have such character and diversity in their songs that they are effortlessly entertaining.

When I came across the collective noun for Australia’s Magpies, I new I’d found the ideal title for the album: ‘A Madrigal of Magpies’. Very evocative, appropriate, and preferable to the northern hemisphere’s ‘murder of magpies’ (entirely different species of course).

One of the recordings we chose for the album features the Magpie’s nocturnal song. It is much slower and lazier than their diurnal song – as nocturnal birdsong often is (listen to the 3am Pied Butcherbird song on ‘Spirit of the Outback for instance). But the Magpie’s nightsong is also structurally quite different too. Why this is, and why they sing like this at all, I don’t know, but their lazy warbles on a moonlit night are a pure delight.

Here is a sample from ‘A Madrigal of Magpies’ to listen to.

It features four excerpts edited together. The first minute or so is from a morning in bushland, and you can hear the Magpies’ typical daytime call, including some nice warbling among a chorus of other birdsong. The second is the nocturnal call (with some White-plumed Honeyeater dawn calls), and you can hear how lazy and relaxed it is compared to the diurnal ones. The last minute or so comes from Magpies recorded near suburban Melbourne and in an open rural district.

‘A Madrigal of Magpies’ is available on CD or by direct digital download exclusively from our website: www.listeningearth.com/albums/40MadrigalMagpies/40MadrigalMagpies_Album_info.htm

The nature sound album ‘A Madrigal of Magpies’ features not only Magies, but a diversity of beautiful Australian birdsong, and is available on CD or by digital download from our website: www.listeningearth.com

Several years ago, Sarah and I journeyed to the Australian outback, hoping to record the calls of Cockatiels.

We were not having any luck finding them (they are highly nomadic birds, and seemed to have departed the area a few weeks previously). However we did discover something unexpected – a group of ephemeral lakes in the desert, filled with water for the first time in 40 years.

The parched and flat expanses of the Australian outback may not seem the kind of place where one expects to find lakes. But when water arrives, it brings the dry landscape to life in a most spectacular way.

Birdlife, particularly waterfowl, is attracted to these inland water bodies to breed. They arrive from possibly thousands of kilometers away in response to rainfall, and we found these isolated lakes to be refuge for a huge numbers of ducks, coots, black swans, maned geese, dotterels and cormorants.

We nearly wouldn’t have known about the lakes at all. It was the local landowner who suggested we may find them interesting for our sound recording, and directed us to them through the flat, scrubby country.

We set up camp near the shore of Pine Lake, one of the smaller ones of the group. Being limited in size, the birdlife was concentrated, offering better opportunities for sound recording than larger, open water locations.

During the day, waterfowl could be seen resting across the lake. I tried making some recordings, but the birds were largely silent. It was at only night that they really got vocal.

This surprised us at first. One thinks of birds roosting at night, at least being quieter and less active. But water birds are the opposite, they really party after dark!

Throughout the night, ducks, geese and swans could be heard calling in the still air, their voices echoing eerily across the landscape. Every now and then, wings could be heard overhead as ducks took to the air or flew in from nearby lakes, alighting with a soft splash. Along with the waterfowl, nocturnal crickets chimed quietly, and small bats could be heard echo-locating for insects over the water’s edge. Tiny dotterels patrolled the shoreline, occasionally giving their characteristic ‘ratchetty’ calls.

I had set up my microphones on the water’s edge, and ended up leaving the recorder running for many hours. As Sarah and I sat in the dark, we found ourselves being gently lulled by these hauntingly beautiful sounds.

We found out later that we were not the only ones to find this symphony of waterbirds restful.

Meeting up again with the owner, he shared his delight in these nightsounds too. Despite a challenging life on the land, he had a deep appreciation of nature. He described how it was only the second time in his life that he had seen these lakes fill, and how his family would drive out to them after dinner, to sit quietly in the moonlight listening to the ducks with a glass of wine in hand.

Here is a short sound sample of what we heard on those evenings. The full recording is featured on our album ‘Meditation at Pine Lake’.

‘Meditation at Pine Lake’ can be purchased on CD or as a digital download from our website: www.listeningearth.com

So perhaps you can understand why for us, the thought of these beautiful little birds in captivity is saddening. Nevertheless, we can appreciate how pet birds bring joy to so many people.

Over the years, we have heard from many owners who report that playing our birdsong recordings seems to be beneficial for their feathered friends. Anxious birds were observed to calm down when they heard other birdsong, and lethargic ones seemed to become active and engaged, some singing for the first time.

Here are some examples of what we’ve heard:

“Since its mate died a year ago, I could see our pet Budgie was bored and under-stimulated. I have been trying to liven it up a bit in many ways (music, diet, toys…), but without much success. I bought your ‘Spirit of the Outback’ CD and played it back to our budgie. It went crazy instantly and started eating more, flying more and socialising more with us!!! By any chance, would you have any other recordings of budgies in any situation? Thanks for the good work, you have made a major impact in a life (of the budgie!).”

“Do you have, or can you recommend, a recording of budgies in the wild? Something my daughter can play for her birds to help them have that “part of the flock” feeling?”

At first we were surprised at these dramatic changes in behaviour, but it is easily understandable. Social bird species, such as budgies, are often favoured for aviaries because we enjoy watching them interact. With all birds, but especially these social species, vocalising and communicating is a vital part of their survival and wellbeing. So it makes sense that hearing the sounds of their own kind should have a profound impact on their mental and emotional wellbeing. For a budgerigar, silence must be very disturbing.

We can perhaps understand what it may be like for them, because humans are pretty social too (most of us . For instance, when we’re on our own at home, many of us will put the TV or talkback radio on in the background. We may not be watching or even listening all that closely, it is just comforting in some way to have a voice in the background. Birds are likely similar, and this is why they respond to birdsong in their immediate environment.

For many years, we have been recommending our ‘Spirit of the Outback’ album for budgie owners, as it has some nice calling from them (plus it is a great listen all round). But we felt that something ‘more budgie’ would be appreciated. Hence (and after many requests from bird owners!) we have created an album specifically for our feathered listeners. For their wellbeing.

“Happy Budgies” is recorded in central Australia – budgie country! It features the sounds of wild budgerigars interacting contentedly in their natural environment, plus a diversity of other outback birdsong. We have avoided any distress calls, or calls of obvious predators. It begins with the sounds of a flock of budgies waking in the morning; the chatter of the communal roost, then flying off to feed, calling on the wing and still communicating amiably. Later we hear quiet, contented subsong, and the sounds of preening and group interaction.

Why the title “Happy Budgies”? Well, for us, seeing them in the wild brings happiness. I don’t know whether wild budgies really are ‘happy’, but they often seem to be, they appear to be having a great time. And ultimately, we hope that it makes your budgie happy to listen to these sounds.

Have a listen to a sound sample from the album.

“Happy Budgies” is only available for digital download from our online shop.

(We anticipate that some people may prefer to have this album on CD, for instance so they can put it on loop from their CD player whilst out during the day. At this stage, we have no plans for it to be available in retail outlets. However we can supply it on CD – contact us for details. Alternately, one can always burn the digital download version to CD-R at home)

In late September, Sarah and I undertook a short (but adventurous!) field trip to Mutawintji National Park in outback NSW (more later!).

We arrived home just in time for a gathering of local members of the Australian Wildlife Sound Recording Group. A small mob of us southerners convened at the Clarkesdale Bird Sanctuary near Ballarat, for a weekend of camping, sound recording and workshopping, somehow also fitting in the group’s AGM.

The previous week had presented some wet and wild weather, but fortunately the weekend was still, sunny and calm – absolutely perfect for nature recording.

The location I chose to record was a creek-line called ‘The Bird Paddock’. Dense shrubs lined the watercourse, with huge eucalypts towering overhead. The wattle and grevilia were in full bloom and birds seemed to be everywhere. Wrens, fantails and scrub-wrens flitted around the understory, while rosellas, cuckoos, treecreepers, sitellas, shrike-tits, kookaburras and brush bronzewing pigeons could be observed higher in the treetops. Occasionally corellas or cockatoos provided a noisy fly-past.

I am delighted with my recording from the morning. As it was a semi-rural area, I anticipated some local road traffic or other interference, but the Sunday morning was quiet and the birdsong rich. Eventually we hope to release the full recording as an album, but for the time being, here is an excerpt for your enjoyment.

Spring morning at Clarkesdale Bird Sanctuary, Linton, Victoria.