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. Every day from now on, we will record the progress of spring and summer from the spaces and silences that surround us here on Dartmoor, and share them here. Our aim is to produce 15-30 minutes of unedited sound of nature and the moor, every day, for anyone to listen to and connect to what’s going on out there as the springtime unfolds – 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