As previously mentioned I've been in South Africa for the past 3 weeks recording wildlife as part of the Sonic Mmabolela workshop. I will go into more detail about this in the coming weeks and months as I go through the hundreds of gigabytes of recordings, videos and photos. Until then I want to share a thunderstorm I recorded earlier this evening while I went out to dinner. I was just stepping out when I noticed a lot of lightning in the distance so I set up my D100 on the windowsill just in case the storm would get closer.

Storms seem to be much more violent in Johannesburg than in the UK where I'm based. The other day I heard a lot of thunder while on the trip back from Mmabolela reserve, but sadly I could not record it as we were still on the road. I felt a bit of regret but I've been really happy with everything else I recorded these weeks so I got over it quickly.

This evening's storm passed right over the city though and offered a few extremely loud cracks that were picked up by the recorder. Luckily I had set the input levels really low (as I normally do when recording thunderstorms) so none of the takes were clipped. Here's a short snippet you can download and use commercially as you would do with any library you would purchase from Mindful Audio:

Field recording tools of the trade

At the lower end of the price spectrum, field recording equipment will yield relatively similar results. A few dB of self noise won’t make a huge difference if the recordist hasn’t mastered the other tools of the trade, the ones that can’t be bought. Let’s examine some lesser known but rather more important tools that are sure to improve your field recording practice.

Introduction to Freestyle field recording

Freestyle field recording is a flexible approach to recording nature and wildlife sounds outside of the studio or any controlled environment, developed by George Vlad. While traditional methods are prescriptive and rigid, Freestyle field recording encourages deliberate experimentation and a very organic workflow.

Listening session at the House of Lords in Westminster

I recently received an invitation to play some of my soundscapes and to tell stories about conservation. While there’s nothing unusual about that, the setting was definitely novel for me.

A collection of Owl sounds

Owls are awesome and worth learning about. What better place to start than a curated selection of owl recordings, captured by your favourite wildlife sound recordist!

The 2025 Soundscape Fund

How can field recording make a difference for conservation and environmental causes? I get this question a lot, and one of the answers is here. Once a year I team up with Thomas Rex Beverly and Andy Martin to raise money for environmental NGOs.