This first library from Fleeting Sound was recorded in early 2015 in the far south-eastern corner of east-Morocco. The land here is at the far western point of the plateau which extends 1500km east to west and at the foot of the north-western limit of the Saharan Atlas Mountains – the southern-most range of the Atlas Mountains, with the overall recording area at an elevation of around 800-1000m.
Forget endless, empty, arid desert plains – whilst wildlife is relatively sparse, and conditions are harsh, this is a stunningly varied region, with every day revealing new and different landscapes. The 10-day expedition captured the start of spring, with larks and wheatears coming into song, briefly, before winter unexpectedly hit back with a rare dusting of snow and below-freezing nighttime temperatures. Before long though the temperature had rebounded to 25º, the first crickets were chirping gently in the sun, and the biting wind dropped to a light breeze, stirring tufts of vegetation as flocks of chorusing fulvous babblers passed through and larks displayed above…
Key Features
- 23 stereo atmospheres with birds, amphibians and insects
- 10 mono single-bird recordings
- detailed Soundminer and BWAV metadata including species
- all recordings free of human-originated noise
Featured Habitats
Shrublands, periodic-lakes and riverbeds, streams, sand-dune deserts, rock-deserts, stoney and grassy plains and rocky mountain-slopes.
Wildlife Vocalisations
Birds include crested and thekla lark, calandra lark, desert lark, desert wheatear, fulvous babbler, barbary falcon, linnet, ruddy duck, avocet and great grey shrike. Other wildlife sounds from frogs (sahara frog) and crickets. The frogs and insects and most of the birds have a range which extends right across arid areas of North Africa and, some of them, beyond into the Middle East.
Technical
Due to a technical fault (with the power to a Sound Devices 744T – I can’t tell you how disappointing that was!) what was supposed to be a collection of 5.0 surround recordings ended-up in stereo – a Sennheiser MKH30/8040 MS microphone setup recorded through Sound Devices MixPre-D preamps into a Sony PCM-D50.
Recording Characteristics
- Low-noise (although expect lower signal-noise ratio for those recordings with very little atmospheric sound)
- Carefully mastered to remove any unwanted artefacts whilst preserving low-frequency energy
- Spatially balanced to ensure a coherent and immersive stereo image appropriate to the recording.
- Continuous, unedited and uninterrupted, preserving the natural rhythms of the biophony.
20% of the sale price will go directly to Harmusch Estudio y Conservación de Fauna to help preserve and restore the habitats of all the contributors heard on this album.
All sounds recorded by Nicholas Allan, a Jackson Hole and BAFTA-nominated sound editor who, along with his team, has created the natural soundtracks for countless natural history TV documentaries and feature films for National Geographic, BBC, Discovery, Animal Planet, Netflix and others.
Special thanks to: José Luis Sánchez Balsera, Javi Herrera, Jose María Gil Sánchez, Andrew Wilson and Jolanta Brdej.
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