This
page has sound recordings from my
travels to South Africa and Namibia.
All recordings...
M/S Stereo Shure
VP88 Sound
Devices MP2 Fostex
FR2
Storm
Rolling in on Verandah
01:57
Recorded off
the back verandah of Mundulea House on Karongwe Reserve in Limpopo
Province where I lived. This is the beginning of a
huge storm coming in. We recorded greater than 100mm of rain
on the gauge the
next morning.
Blackbacked
Jackal
07:39
We camped one evening at Nakluft View near Sesriem, Namibia on the edge
of the Namib
Desert, the oldest desert in the world. At about midnight we
began to hear jackal calling
around of campground and I went up onto a plateau near our campsite to
record one of
them. There were thousands of giant armoured ground crickets
crawling along the ground
as well and it was all I could do keep quiet as they slowly walked
across my feet as I held
the microphone.
Giant
Eagle Owl
01:41
Here is a recording of a lovely huge, pale grey, pink eyed juvenile
Giant Eagle Owl. He or
she is perched nearby up in a Leadwood Tree on Karongwe Reserve.
African
Penguins
02:14
At Boulders Beach on the Cape Peninsula there is a colony of about 3000
African Penguins,
the largest colony on mainland Africa. You’ll hear
why these birds were called Jackass
Penguins until very recently. Just down the road from where
these penguins were
recorded is a portion of the beach where humans are allowed to swim in
the bay along with the penguins. So
fun.
Male
Impala Fighting
01:49
Two young male impala going at it to test their mettle and secure their
mates.
Matabele
Ants
01:25
A swarm of Matabele Ants communicating. I can only assume
they are planning their next
raid on a termite mound. You cannot hear this strange
squeaking from 6 feet off the ground,
but when you lower your ear, or your microphone to ant level this sound
is surprisingly loud.
Caterpillars
Eating Marula Tree
02:10
Probably the strangest ambient sound I’ve heard
yet. This subtle clicking you hear is
actually made by caterpillars. The caterpillars will attack a
tree and over the course of a
few days, will eat all the leaves off the tree. This tree is
a Marula Tree on Karongwe
Reserve and the clicking sound is actually their feces hitting the tree
on its way to the ground.
Weird.
Baboons
01:18
A group of Baboons up in some trees recorded from Mundulea House on
Karongwe Reserve.
Elephant
Charge
01:40
My hairiest moment in South Africa. While on research drive
one afternoon on Karongwe,
we drove up a road and inadvertently between the elephant herd and the
Matriarch of the
herd. In her own way, she let us know that we were not in a
spot that she approved of.
While normally we would stand firm in our truck when an Elephant
approached, this
encounter found us deciding it best to speed in reverse away from her
as quickly as we could.
She came charging at us full tilt and trumpeting to boot. She
was within about 3 meters of
our truck before she stopped running.
Lion
Vocalizing
01:22
Just a short piece of a lion relaxing and stretching on the reserve.
Lions
Eating 1
04:33
These two recordings are of a group of three lions tucking into a baby
giraffe which they had
only just taken down and killed. You’ll hear them
chewing on bone, tearing skin, breathing
and gulping and swallowing. We were lucky enough to sit for 2
hours only 10 meters away
from this scene during a beautiful sundown on Karongwe.
Roar 1
01:02
These four tracks are various roaring sequences. Rather than
aggressive roars, these are
contact calls to let others know where they are and to request a
response for reciprocal
information. They are all at night and feature two lions
roaring at once. The 3rd track is
an edited piece of a roar as the beginning was too loud for the
recorder.
This
section
consists entirely of
recordings of a man named Goodman singing on a street corner in
downtown Cape Town. Goodman is blind and busks most
afternoons. He plays in open tuning with a similar chord
structure for all of his songs. He also plays the guitar in
an
unusual position sitting and holding the guitar upright and facing him
and barring the chords with his thumb only. While his songs
are
simple I believe there is something pure and driven
about his performance.