A Nature Recordist

I do quite a bit of nature recording and what makes it a worthwhile pastime for me is the beauty of the moment forever captured in sound, the fleeting moments of time that I set on a digital file....a sound photograph. Most of the birds and insects you hear will be gone in the blink of an eye. An adult Mayfly may live for 30 minutes if they're lucky.....maybe one day at the most. Or how about those pesky white Japanese Beetle grubs that chomp on your beautiful lawn. They spend about 10 years under you grass as grubs but only one month as an adult beetle. Time flies (house fly: 10-25 days) doesn't it? I know these two insects can't be recorded but I just wanted to make known the reason for my addiction to recording and that's the quick evaporation of life. The Spring Peepers you'll hear in the following sound clip live for about three years and that's probably the maximum life expectancy so many of the one's you'll hear are on their last spring of life. The bullfrog is a longer lived story and can survive in the wild for about 7 years. The red winged blackbirds you'll hear at the beginning of the clip average about 2 1/4 years of life in the wild but can live longer...maybe 6-7 years.

This is a long clip...over 17 minutes...but you can skip around by grabbing the counter and dragging it to where you want it. It's been condensed from an hour to just over 17 minutes to show the transition of a pond at dusk from only birds to the deafening crescendo of frogs.

Country Pond At Dusk by Ray Bayer

Here's the recording location:


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