Dear Wildsong customer
Welcome to another of our occasional newsletters. This being November 2005 and, after a lovely mellow autumn, with plenty of sunshine and a rich blanket of colour covering the woods and moors (at least here in Northumberland), the rains have hit and the leaves have been falling thickly.
It's been a busy year and since Geoff has been occupied with studio projects, recording activities have been limited and plans for releasing new CDs have had to be put on hold. But keep an eye out in the spring for new material. Geoff has a lot of superb recordings from trips around Europe in recent years and would like to compile some CD albums with a wider, more European theme. But what do our customers think - is this of interest or do we stick to our focus on Britain and Ireland?
Nevertheless we've added quite a few albums from other recordist/publishers to the catalogue recently - see below.
Some of the accompanying mp3 sound files are a good bit larger than usual, with apologies to those still on dial-up modems.
Some people have occasionally
had problems with our online ordering system. Usually this is down to
a slow connection with our internet bank WorldPay. When you click to choose
to pay by credit card, this connects with the WorldPay servers and can
take a little while when they're busy. Sorry if you've had to wait.
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In this newsletter:
- New
CD Titles
- Special Offers
- New Voice on the Phone
- Out and about
- Studio Activities
- Coming Soon
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New
CD Titles
===========
We’ve
added a number of new titles to the collection we offer from other recordist/producers:
soundscapes from India, Antarctica, Zimbabwe, the Mexican desert and Papua
New Guinea include work from Bernie Krause, Douglas Quin and Steven Feld.
The Diversity of Animal Sounds
is a 62 track CD compilation from Cornell covering the full range of sounds
to be heard from the creatures of earth - from bats and birds to elephant
and rattlesnake. We also have the classic album of soundscape compositions
from Hildegard Westerkamp - Transformations,
as well as new stock of the book and CD combination Why
do Whales and Children Sing?
Further details here.
Special
Offers
===========
What began as a Xmas offer, evolved into a Spring offer and now looks
like being a permanent deal. All four Wildsong soundscape albums are available
for £30 - a saving of £10; in fact we can extend this to any
four CDs out of the Wildsong publications - but you’ll need to call
or email to arrange your order. Water Music and Wind Music are available
together for £15 - a saving of £5.
We'd like to reassure customers that any personal details supplied with an order remain confidential and are never passed on to third parties. We ask for telephone numbers just in case there's any problem with the order. When ordering online, the WorldPay pages for entering credit card details are protected by 128bit SSL security.
New Voice on the Phone
===================
Jane’s other work as a homeopath and healthy living project manager
is now a full-time occupation - good luck! Sarah has taken over her admin
role and will deal with orders.
Out
and about
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It
was meant to be a family holiday. And it was. But a trip to southern France
in August this year was also a great opportunity for some close encounters
with the more prolific and spectacular insect life than cooler Britain.
keep still
Heath
Bush-cricket
These are common on the causses of the Cevennes, where their loud, electronic
buzz of a song is hard to ignore. (mp3
192k)
Swallowtail
butterfly
In August many of the butterfly species
are past their best. But still the butterfly life in the Cevennes was
spectacular. Beside our tent at one campsite was a cherry tree: the fruit
must have fallen a month or so previously and the juices seeped into the
ground. At around 9:30am the sun reached this patch and it became a magnet
for many butterflies to come and feed: Great Banded Grayling, Swallowtail,
Scarce Swallowtail, Silver-washed Fritillary, White Admiral and our first
ever Camberwell Beauty.
In the Dordogne valley, we stayed in Kyle’s
cottage (another wildlife sound enthusiast), where the evening cricket
chorus was a real treat. Listen here
(mp3 756k)
By late morning things had heated up enough for the large Cicada orni to start up its raucous 'song'. (mp3 476k)
On the limestone plateau nearby there was a scattered group of Stone Curlew: they aren't really Curlew, but sound similar. (mp3 1.3MB)
An autumn session in the Scottish Highlands focused on the Red Deer rut. As usual the rivers were brim full with autumn rains; one year I'll catch it just right. Walking through the old Caledonian pine forest in the moonlight, with the stags' roars echoing all around, was a truly unforgettable experience, as wild and primeval as it gets in Britain. (mp3 2.5MB)
Other highlights this year were a woodland session when a pair of goshawks (mp3 1.8MB) came close. And a June dawn session by a Borders loch, where a male whinchat (mp3 1.2MB) took the lead.
Studio
Activities
=============
Marcus Coates
Look
out for a new visual installation, exploring the phenomenon of the dawn
chorus, at the Baltic Centre for Contemporary
Art , Gateshead, opening in January
2007. Geoff has been working with Marcus on this over
the summer, including two weeks at the beginning of May making multitrack
recordings of the dawn chorus at several Northumberland locations.
Sounding
Out Bedlington
You mean you don’t know where Bedlington is? Shame! It’s between
Newcastle and Ashington and the Country Park there, along the dene of
the river Blyth, now features an innovative audio trail produced by Geoff.
There’s a CD of the guide available too.
Contact SureStart Bedlington 01670 822714.
Coming
Soon
===========
BBC2 Hands-on nature
Look out for Geoff talking about the birdsong of Bradfield Woods in Suffolk
on a new TV nature programme. Hands on Nature: Woodlands is scheduled
for transmission at 3pm 7th December BBC2.
New Wildsong Publications
Expect some new Wildsong titles in the spring of 2006 - any requests or
ideas for content is welcome. Geoff is also working on a book and CD combination
Guide to British Wildlife Sounds to be published by HarperCollins in April
2006. This will cover mammals, insects, amphibians, as well as a range
of distinctive or unusual bird calls.
Finally we'd like to thank all our customers and website visitors for their continued interest and support. Have a good christmas and a happy new year. The forecasters predict a cold winter, based on high sea temperatures in the Atlantic and an an expectation that this will increase high pressure systems drifting to the north of Britain. It'll be interesting to see if they're right.
Geoff Sample & Jane Field
Wildsong
P.O.Box 30
Wooler
Northumberland
NE71 6WA
Tel: 01668 283525 (+44 1668 283525 from overseas)
Email: news@wildsong.co.uk
Web: http://www.wildsong.co.uk