Songbirding: A Birding-by-ear Podcast

It’s late August of 2021 and I’ve returned to Johnston Harbour to explore a bit more.

This time of year will be much quieter, as the birds are focused on moulting their feathers, and migrating south.

Credits

Songbirding was recorded, engineered, narrated and created by Rob Porter.

Each year I attempt to put together a new episode for the Halloween season, but as you might be aware, finding owls is in itself a time consuming effort, let alone recording sounds of them.

While I didn’t succeed in capturing much this year, I did think of what I think should be a fun fill-in. This episode will be entirely soundscapes of birds, insects, frogs, and coyotes singing in the night. It will be a standalone episode, in case you’d like to play it on a loop for a haunted house, or whatever purpose you might have in mind.

This will be on both the Songbirding and Songscapes podcast feeds.

Species include: Eastern Screech-Owl, Great Horned Owl, Eastern Whippoorwill, Eastern Coyote, Common True Katydid, Chorus Frog, and more.

Locations of recording were throughout southern Ontario, and in Allegheny National Forest, Pennsylvania.

It’s the last evening before I head back home, and I won’t be back again until late August.

After this evening with the Brown Creepers, I’ll have another hike in the morning at a new location, as I’ve noticed there was a trailhead I had missed on the main road I’d like to scout out for next year’s return trip.

Credits

Songbirding was recorded, engineered, narrated and created by Rob Porter.

It’s the last night before I leave, and I’m hiking along Scuggog Lake near Johnston Harbour to retrieve my bioacoustic recorders.

I’ve come across a flock of cackling Red-breasted Mergansers, but at the time I wasn’t sure of the identity of the species by the sound alone.

Credits

Songbirding was recorded, engineered, narrated and created by Rob Porter.