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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Andrew Whitehouse" data-source="post: 3453197" data-attributes="member: 3550">I had a go at this last night, though seemingly without recording any notable birds.My kit:Olympus LS11Sennheiser ME66 mounted on a tripod.I did the recording from my bedroom with the window open.  I was worried that the recording would be drowned out by the sound of me snoring but reassuringly this didn't seem to happen.  Despite living just across the street from Mark I'm probably not quite as well positioned for recording as both sides of my flat are quite noisy, with the street on one side and Aberdeen harbour on the other.  I recorded 9 hours 21 mins in all as an MP3.  The recording was fairly good quality but it was a bit tricky for my computer to handle the size of file.Reading the sound file on Audacity is probably the key skill.  It's tricky where I am because there's always significant background noise, though this seemed to drop off a bit after midnight.  Some sounds are quite easy to pick out.  A thorough look through easily revealed several barking dogs, a couple of car alarms and a drunk bloke coming home from the pub.  Sharp sounds are easy to spot e.g. the beating of wings from a Feral Pigeon and the long call from a Herring Gull.  Softer sounds from passerines are very easy to miss.  The ticking of a Robin is almost invisible and the song is only noticeable when very close.  The last 45 minutes of the recording (from around 6am) include quite good numbers of Meadow Pipits going over (a strong passage this morning), as well as several Goldfinches and a Grey Wagtail.  I only picked these up by listening to the recording and not from the visual display though.  It might be easier if I convert the recording to a sonogram, though doing that for the whole recording is probably more than my computer can manage.</blockquote>

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