I don’t want to miss a thing
While noc-mig has taken off in Britain, passive daytime sound recording isn’t widely practised. But it’s well worth giving it a go, says Ed Stubbs.
While noc-mig has taken off in Britain, passive daytime sound recording isn’t widely practised. But it’s well worth giving it a go, says Ed Stubbs.
During the last few years, the value of a sound recorder as an essential field tool has become more recognised than ever before in British birding. This change has largely been twofold: first, nocturnal sound recording (‘noc-mig’) has, after steadily becoming more mainstream over the past two years, enjoyed a remarkable spike in uptake terms. Lockdown and the subsequent limit on birders’ movements no doubt played a part in this.
Almost in tandem has been the increase in people carrying soundrecording gear in the field, whether to specifically record birdsong and calls or to try to document a rare or unidentified bird – the Cornish Paddyfield Pipit being one such example.
Continuous sound recording during the day – we’ll call it CSR in this article – is by no means a new concept. But, while it is practised in Britain, I am always surprised at how few people are doing it. Until recently this included myself, as it wasn’t until I first dabbled in noc-mig a few years ago that I realised I was missing a trick by not recording continuously during daytime field sessions.
What is CSR and why is it useful?
CSR is rather like noc-migging during the day: keeping a recorder running while you go about your birding, in order to document every song or call heard while you’re in the field. In a similar vein to noc-mig, CSR will pick up that calling fly-over whenever it occurs – there’s no need to worry about switching your recorder on and hoping you have time to get onto the bird in question before it’s gone. In short, you won’t miss with CSR, but turning the recorder on each time you want to document something will inevitably result in many fly-over birds slipping through the net.
With fly-overs perhaps the main reason for someone to consider CSR, let’s take a closer look at the benefits. Peak autumn migration is upon us and, for the next couple of months, many birders will be getting up at the crack of dawn to head into the field, whether to undertake visible migration (‘vismig’) at a favoured watchpoint, bush bashing along the coast and everything in between.
In any of these scenarios, a fleeting fly-over can catch you off guard, whether it’s a Richard’s Pipit flushed from a beach dune or a Lapland Bunting bombing over an inland hill. With CSR, these species and their distinctive calls are nailed – even if you’ve only managed the briefest or poorest view imaginable – and documented for good measure. Whether you want to confirm the ID for yourself or are providing a
description to a rarities committee, the recording and sonogram – hard evidence – are there. Often there is barely any time to think, let alone act, with unexpected fly-overs and CSR proves an assurance tool. It’s not always easy to describe bird vocalisations in an authentic way and, furthermore, exactly how a call sounded can erode in your mind over time. Also, if you’ve heard a call that left you unsure, CSR means you can go back to it as many times as needed – I’ve often found that a bird has called a few times more than I thought it did in the field, as well.
How to CSR
Depending on how you’re birding during a particular session, there are two main ways to CSR. For most field sessions, it’s preferable to have the sound recorder on you in person. This means you’re recording as you move around, with the equipment picking up the calls you hear. How you do this depends on your set-up. I often just use my sound recorder, with no shotgun microphone attached (unlike my noc-mig set-up). This is fitted with a small wind muff, which is important in regard to reducing wind noise and other man-made sounds.
I’ve tried all manner of ways to fix the recorder to my person – from masking tape to bandanas! – but have found a handy solution, which is to put the recorder inside the mesh drinks holder on the side of my Karrimor rucksack. As the drinks holder is bigger than my recorder, I pad it out in order to reduce movement. My recorder (Olympus LSP4) comes with an in-built directional microphone, which means I don’t need to use an external shotgun or similar
– it records ‘upwards’, thus reducing the noise of footsteps and so on and enhancing overhead sounds. Other options include safety clips, a breast pocket on a jacket, gaffer tape, straps on your wrist akin to a watch – whatever works for you is the way to go, but it will probably take a few sessions of trial and error.
However, many popular recorders with birders don’t have an in-built directional microphone and so hugely benefit from an external, directional microphone. Mark Lewis, who has written an excellent page on CSR (or, in his words, ‘passive acoustic birding’), explains his sound recorder and external microphone set-up: “I use a Zoom
H4N Pro recorder and a Rode NTG4 microphone that is constantly running for CSR.
“I wear this in a harness that sits on my shoulder – it’s nothing more than a sock shape with a strap attached – and to keep the mic in place I wrap the slack from the strap around my rucksack shoulder straps. This keeps the mic pointing upwards and both hands free, and allows me to access it quickly to point at birds singing or calling from land.
“If I hear anything of significance while birding I simply note the time on the recorder and skip straight to that when I’m listening to the recording later on. Even if nothing interesting flies over, having the recorder running constantly allows me to get some really nice recordings at ground level.
“So far this method has helped me confirm badly heard fly-over Redthroated Pipit and a distant calling
Siberian Chiffchaff, nail the ID of fly-over Woodlark, and meant I was ready to record an unseen calling Redbreasted Flycatcher and a Blyth’s Pipit that was flushed by birders. None of these calls would have been recordable if I hadn’t had the equipment ready and running.”
The other way to CSR is a stationary set-up. This is ideal if you’re vismigging and are essentially not moving
– perhaps watching from a headland or hilltop. It’s just like a noc-mig set-up: have the recorder facing upwards and running – with or without an external, directional microphone – while you stand near it. There are plenty of ways to do this, but I have found that strapping the sound recorder to a microphone stand, with a directional microphone at the top of the stand facing up, is by far the best way for
clear results of overhead birds. The steadiness a stand brings helps with sound quality, too.
Given the number of dedicated vismiggers in Britain, I’m surprised there aren’t more people recording like this. It’s the perfect safety net for capturing that rare fly-over. I spend many hours vis-migging in my local area in Surrey and last autumn CSR captured a Red-throated Pipit over my patch. I failed to photograph the fast-moving bird (despite my best efforts, which you can hear in the recording!), but the sound recorder nailed it, both documenting the bird and creating a wonderful personal keepsake for me.
Joe Stockwell often practises CSR while he vis-migs in Portland, Dorset, and he offers his thoughts: “It wasn’t until I discovered noc-mig and how to process recordings in bulk that I thought I should be doing this by day, too. I knew it wasn’t a new thing by any stretch, but until I did it the worth hadn’t become apparent. 2017 saw me take time out from a busy work schedule, one which I never returned to following on from having such an awesome time. Most mornings were spent either wandering the fields of Portland or vis-migging from the patio at the observatory with Martin Cade and Grahame Walbridge.
“I started to leave a recorder running from start to finish, normally about 10 metres away from us, in the hope that anything we heard and saw would be recorded. Starting out this was fairly basic: a Tascam DR-05 recorder and cheap shotgun microphone from Amazon. As with my early nocturnal recording, this set-up was actually really good. Later that autumn a rather large sum of money was sent to Sweden and a few weeks later a Telinga Pro-X parabolic dish set-up arrived. This changed not only how good my recordings were, but also how much more I began to pick up, long before any of us would make the call. “Nowadays I like to vis-mig away from the patio to make sure any recordings I do make are clean. The last thing I’d want is a fly-over Blyth’s Pipit with various observer’s commentary trying to figure out its identity, no matter how entertaining that could sound!”
Power and processing
An issue I encountered early on with my CSR experimentation was power, or rather a lack of. I often use my recorder on the back of a night of noc-mig – there isn’t enough time between my bleary-eyed awakening and stumbling out the front door for the equipment to fully charge. Often, my recorder can battle on an hour or so post-nocmig, but I’d recommend obtaining a power pack. Much like one you’d use to portably charge your phone, it can give your sound recorder a new lease of life ahead of a CSR session. A good power pack will keep it charged for at least 12 hours, I’ve found.
As Mark mentioned, it’s easy to note down the time you’ve heard something, so that you can quickly find it when processing the recordings on software later on. I actually speak into the recorder once a bird or call of note has occurred, stating the species, call type and time – a close-range human voice stands out like a sore thumb on a sonogram.
It’s worth pointing out that the quality of CSR recordings can often be middling or even poor. A bird can fly over whenever, so all sorts of background noises will be going on and, especially if you’re not birding alone, human voices might be an issue. Wind is an important factor, too. One thing I do to minimise poor quality is more or less ‘freeze’ when I hear a decent bird, so footsteps and movement cease as soon as possible.
So, for anyone who has a sound recorder and hasn’t yet considered CSR, I highly recommend giving it a go when you’re out in the field this autumn. Not only will it automatically record calls you’d struggle to nail if recording ‘manually’, it could also prove crucial in nailing that rare flyover bird or just-heard vocalisation that you weren’t 100% certain of at the time. It’s a straightforward concept really and doesn’t require much ingenuity to manufacture a set-up that suits you. Sometimes a flight call is all you’ll get on a class bird, so it’s surely worth being assured that you’ll document it.