
These are such strange days. Self-isolating should be a pleasure; a quiet walk on the Moor, in the woods, by the river. A chance to breathe, a chance to be quiet, to just sit perhaps. To gain perspective, or be with nature. To let the breeze and song move across the skin. How odd that such isolation now becomes a necessity for darker reasons.
So here is a new project, a collaboration with Tony Whitehead. During lockdown, we have recorded the progress of nature’s year from the spaces and silences that surround us here on Dartmoor, and shared them here. Our aim is to produce 10-15 minutes of unedited sound of nature and the moor, several times a week, for anyone to listen to and connect to what’s going on out there in nature – wherever you are.
As the coronavirus lockdown intensifies, I’d just like to emphasise that these recordings are all taken during our daily walk out from home!
Click on the links for the recordings. Shared with love.

6th July: Willows at Emsworthy

25th June: Quiet on Meldon Hill

23rd June: Garden early morning

22nd June: Midsummer ash at Buda Farm

16th June: Afternoon lull

13th June: Trendlebeare and rain

17th May: Bees, hawthorn and pig
We weren’t expecting to record a pig, but it had other ideas

10th May: Dawn chorus

8th May: Cleave Wood near the river

7th May: Meldon sunset

4th May: Bees on blossom

1st May: Creaking willow tree

30th April: Sheep and rain

28th April: Padley Common

26th April: Cleave Wood

25th April: Roe deer

24th April: Apple blossom and bees

21st April: Ponies on Meldon Hill

20th April: Baby rooks!

19th April: Willows on Meldon Hill

18th April: Cleave

17th April: Allotment rain

16th April: Padley Common

14th April: Allotment ants

13th April: Ash trees

12th April: Natterdon Hill

11th April: River Teign at Gidleigh
10th April: Garden

9th April: Blackthorn, Blackcap and Blackbird

8th April: Willow

7th April: Grazing animals
Tadpoles grazing in a small pond on Padley Common, recorded with a hydrophone

6th April: Town square

5th April: Garden
A windy evening, with the microphone sheltered in the shed! The slightly mournful song of a mistle thrush in the distance.

4th April: Padley Common

3rd April: River Teign

2nd April: Shed!

1st April: Birch

31st March: Padley Common

30th March: Churchyard rooks
Chagford churchyard on a bitterly cold day. No human conversations, but rooks…

29th March: Meldon Hill

28th March: Round Pound, Batworthy
Wild winds whipping across the moor, and meadow pipits (the picture is of nearby Scorhill)

27th March: fields by river Teign

26th March: Meldon Hill

25th March: Gidleigh Tor
Robins and song thrushes at dusk, at the edge of a conifer forest

24th March: Hazel, oak and willow
Near Murchington, sounds of meadow and woodland at the end of the day

23rd March: Padley Common

22nd March: allotment at dusk

21st March – Tolmenstone

20th March – St Michael’s church, Chagford
As the pubs close their doors, here’s the sound of the centre of our little Dartmoor town

19th March – Week Down green lane
A green lane with no end! Bit rainy.

18th March – Natterdon Hill

17th March – Meldon Hill

16th March – Padley Common

15th March – War Cleave Wood