Looking East along the trail beside Afon Hore, a tributary of Afon Hafren
I haven't been out sound recording recently, so I took advantage of a warm afternoon to visit the Hafren Forest, about an hour from my home. I was intending to walk up Afon Hore onto the high moorland, but became sidetracked (as usual) by the lovely ambiance surrounding the River Severn / Hafren just near the confluence, so didn't get very far! The sound recordings published here are from several locations within the Hafren Forest: 20 minutes by the bank of the Severn, followed by a 14 minute sequence from the walk along Afon Hore and through the Spruce plantation above.
Hafren ambiance
Here the river is about 3m wide and flows slowly over its stony, almost level, bed. With a few tall conifers on one side and open scrub, willow and birch on the other, it always attracts an interesting mix of birds.
Over the almost hypnotic tumbling of the river, the recording opens with the repeated melodies of a Song Thrush and a Goldcrest's high pitched "tiddle de dee". Almost immediately a Meadow Pipit strikes up too with its sweeping tones. Meadow Pipits have quite a variety of song, including the tew-tew-tew which varies in speed & slows down quite dramatically as it flies in to land. The gentle, almost hypnotic, ambiance unfolds. I could sit here all day!
Recorded: 2023-06-22 between 1200...1400 LT
Location: 52.471833 -3.700074
Download full length recording:
19min, 35MB, .ogg format
Afon Hore walk
0'00 Crossing the Hafren I take the path which follows Afon Hore, a small tributary. A little way along, where the stream tumbles into a shallow plunge pool, a Wren sings from a patch of willow, with a Blackcap somewhere nearby, too.
3'20 I follow the path away from the stream and up into the plantation, where a Chiffchaff sings close by, with a few other birds, including a Chaffinch, in the background.
6'00 Moving on, I hear and see a Blackcap just above me, and stop to listen for a while. There's another Chaffinch, too. If your high-frequency hearing is good, you'll be able to hear the high trill of Meadow grasshoppers in the undergrowth. Bees and other insects fly by and a Song Thrush sings in the distance.
8'00 Approaching the Thrush, I pass a Coal Tit singing his distinctive "wheet-ee wheet-ee wheet-ee" song. It's mid afternoon and the breeze is getting up, the gusts sweeping through the tops of the tall spruce. A Chaffinch sings "yipee g-g-g-g-g-ginger beer" then a robin chirps briefly before I hear just a couple of quiet calls which I'm sure are those of a Lesser Redpoll, a seed eating finch which seems happy to add conifer seeds to its diet of Birch and Alder. A Goldcrest twitters in a high register.
10'45 The wind picks up and I'm considering packing up my microphones for the day when I come to a small clump of Aspen. I'd seen their leaves shimmering in the sunlight when I was in the valley by the stream, and wanted to investigate, as they're not too common up here, tending to prefer lowland streamsides. The largest of the trees, probably around 40 yeard old, stands beside a tiny stream which forms a narrow gap in the plantation where it obviously took hold, the tiny seeds blown in by the wind. Holding the microphones above my head, I reach into the canopy to capture the distinctive and evocative clicking or "trembling" of the leaves. Populus tremula is an apt name! If anything, the wind is too strong, the swish of the conifers overpowering the soundscape and challenging my microphone windshields, too. But I'm pleased to have found a few Aspen up here and listening to the rattle of their leaves forms an interesting, if unexpected, conclusion to my brief midsummer trip to the Hafren Forest.
Recorded: 2023-06-22 between 1400...1800 LT
Location: 52.467440 -3.717821 & surrounding area
Download full length recording:
14min, 28MB, .ogg format
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