This is a very odd post, even by my standards. I have been sorting out some old archives of sound recordings - all manner of stuff, and I found two surviving examples of nature/wildlife recordings I made 20 years ago, which I have now put in a secure library until I think what to do with them.
I moved to my present address, which is on a farm on the South East coast of Scotland, in August 2000. At the time I was living on my own. I was commuting daily into Edinburgh, so during my first Winter here I only ever saw my house and garden in daylight at the weekends.
I was fascinated by the garden birds here. I had also acquired a good collection of the nature recordings of the Canadian, Dan Gibson, which were sold in airport gift shops in the USA under the general heading of Relaxation Tapes. I found them very therapeutic - this was a stressful time in my private life, and they helped me to sleep!
I had a very good portable tape recorder, and decided I might try some nature recording here as a new hobby venture. I had good mics and everything, so I had a few sessions, which were very pleasing, but it became obvious very quickly that I was going to be frustrated by the number of low-flying microlights coming down the coast here from the airfield at East Fortune. Reluctantly, I shelved the project, and - of course - never went back to it. I have one surviving session which I listen to occasionally - about an hour, in 2 half-hour files, recorded one Sunday morning, 11th March 2001 - that's 20 years ago, and as it happens exactly 6 months before 9/11 (the Day the World Changed Forever).
The sun coming up - my garden photographed in March 2001. I note that my garage door was blue in those days (I had forgotten), and a number of mature trees and the electricity pole have disappeared since then. The recordings were made just off the left of the picture, next to the garage...
The recording was originally stereo analog, but I converted it to digital and made some mp3 transcriptions because the small file size is handy, and for nature sounds the quality is probably good enough. I listen to it from time to time because it's a lovely, relaxing thing to hear (at low volume, while reading, for example), and also because it's interesting for me to observe the definite changes in the ambient sounds over 20 years. If I tried it again now, the recording would be swamped by wood pigeons and collared doves - back in the day, there was much lively chatter from blackbirds, greenfinches, jackdaws and all the smaller chaps. Fabulous. Greenfinches have just about disappeared here now.
I set up my mics at the bottom of the garden - there is a wood beyond the wall - and left them to get on with it. Since there seemed to be some fighting going on, for the second half hour I shifted the mics a little further from the wood - nearer to the farm lane, to tone it down a bit. It's a Sunday, but there was noticeably less motor traffic 20 years ago. You can hear occasional parties of ladies on horses trooping past on the concrete road - it takes about 5 minutes to walk here from the stables, so when you hear horses it will probably be 5 minutes past the hour, paying parties of riders setting off every hour from 10am onwards!
At least one microlight appears during the recording (must have been sparse traffic that day); my friend Ian, who is a flyer, tells me that the engines in microlights now sound different, though I don't know what the changes have been.
Also, during the recording there are occasional high-flying airliners passing over, heading from the south east - straight over our farm. These would be planes from Amsterdam and Frankfurt, headed for Canada and Seattle. The transatlantic flights from London used to go out over Ireland, and of course we never saw any return flights, since they came in on the Jet Stream, directly West to East, rather than on the Great Circle. It seems to me that we very rarely see passenger planes flying over here now. Are there less of them? Do they go a different way now? Am I just too stupid to notice? Whatever, it used to be a commonplace here to see vapour trails against the blue sky, coming over the Cheviots at 35,000 feet and straight over here - I seldom see them now. Maybe this is a pandemic thing.
Another photo - same day. This is Horace, my 1989 Land Rover 90, next to the gate onto the lane. Horace was a lot of fun, but it cost a fortune to keep him on the road! [An LR 90 was what they called Defenders before they were Defenders]
In case you are mad enough to want to listen to it, the recording - my personal Time Capsule! - is on Google Drive. If you click on this link, you should be allowed to open a folder which contains 2 half-hour files - a Sunday morning in my garden, 20 years ago, horses walking past and the lot. If you know your birds, see who was there! If you wish to download it that's OK, but please don't abuse the share rights!
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