Last year, the Teesmouth Bird Club did a Garden Birdwatch Challenge which I organised and took part in. The rules were simple, record all the birds you see and hear from your garden (or property boundary if you lived in a flat). No recordings were allowed, but I did spend a few evenings with my head out of the window trying to add a few species.
A few successes were heard in the first lockdown as everything was very quiet, so Canada Goose and Coot could be heard on the local park lake. I did later see Canada geese flying out the house, but it was good to be able to hear them communicating with one another that evening. I don't think Coot would have been possible without those audible calls, so it was a bonus. With no disrespect to Coots, it probably the only time you would say that Coot is a bonus species.
So for 2021 I am going over to the dark side i.e Nocmig which is sound recording during night time to pickup the calls of migrating birds. I was lucky I already had a Zoom sound recorder and use the software, so I have nothing to lose and an experience to gain. I didn't have a big SD card free at the time, but at least it would show me what was possible from my back garden.
On 31st January, I setup my sound recording equipment in the back garden. Nothing flash just the sound recorder sticking out of an old plastic tub (now empty after the birds finished all the fat balls). A plastic bag over the top just in case of rain and that was it. I switched it on and walk away off to sleep!
The next morning I collected the sounder recorder from the garden and put the SD card in the computer. After following the very detailed instructions on the Nocmig website I was looking at a Spectrogram of the evening.
The start of spectrogram showed the various late night running of water to clean teeth, etc and the closing of doors. A local dog had a good bark and a car alarm were all picked up and showed interesting patterns on the spectrogram.
Cars travelling fast along the main road about 400 metres away could be heard, along with squeaky brakes but things were slowing down down,
In the general thong of noise at 1000 - 1500 Hz, I could still just about make out those Canada geese on the park lake up to 11:30 pm.
At midnight and beyond until the card ran out of space I searched the spectrogram for something different.
The first find was at 12:14 am (see 1st spectrogram) a flypast by Mallard which I think by the calls are male and possibly 3. The calls and noise of the wingbeats can be heard.
I was thrilled to record this on my first session and click on the link below to hear the recording.
https://soundcloud.com/julie-mason-12/nocmig-recording-mallard-31-01-2021
Now armed with a larger SD card to record a full night time session.