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<b>A beautiful and energizing sound! On the wooded slope a little above the Lower Deer Stalker's Path, high on the south side of the Teign Gorge, Drewsteignton, Devon, UK, above Fingle Bridge, we listen in to the woodland (or should I say, wonderland?) background sound that almost all people ignore &#8212; the vast multitude of flies. The hum is mostly from hoverflies (Diptera, Syrphidae), but other flies and also bees, bumblebees and wasps of a huge range of species are all in the mix.</b> <b>There is some bird sound too, though as it's August it's the 'silent season' for the vast majority of our songbirds here in the UK. The one bird species that still sings significantly on this occasion is the woodpigeon. We also hear the odd raven calls (croaks with a woody resonance). One mystery bird for me is the very high-pitched one uttering calls quite briefly at around 45' in. I can hear only faintly two of its calls because they're so high-pitched, but I've listened to it at reduced speed and still don't recognise it. I don't think it's goldcrest or firecrest, but maybe I'm wrong about that?</b> <b>Here and there you may hear a rather quiet wooden knocking sound. That is a nuthatch that has put a nut, acorn or such-like in a crevice in a bit of dead tree to enable it then to hammer at it and extract extract its contents.</b> Regarding the flies, with a tuning fork (back at home) I established that a sort of communal 'home pitch' of their 'show' was roughly Middle C plus the C an octave lower. Hoverflies typically hover at a remarkably constant position (and pitch of their wingbeat hum), periodically darting to a different position where they are hovering again at their restored 'home pitch'. The dart between hovering positions would transiently raise or lower the pitch of their sound. Non-hovering flies and bees and wasps are different. Their sound is typically wavering and wandering, which can be fairly annoying if it goes on and on, but the focus here is primarily on the hoverflies. I made this recording on yet another hot and sultry afternoon, 12 August 2020, as a Plan B. To quote from my journal&#8230; ================== I wouldn't have gone out at all for any sort of hike today, with the forecast indicating continuing heat and humidity, and it was a knife-edge decision to go for a prospective thunderstorm recording session, for the weather forecast for the region today had varied widely during yesterday, at one stage showing a broad solid swathe of thunderstorm just where I wanted it to be, during afternoon and into the night. But then it changed to just very isolated showers, with the real thunderstorms all further north and east. So, I decided to go anyway just in case, also with the possibility of getting a good recording of the hum of flies in the woods even if no weather came over. The heat / humidity made even the gentlest walking on my route punishing. At my reasonably shaded base on Lower Deer Stalker's Path I did a good job of keeping activity (prowling) level low enough almost to avoid getting sweaty again. With no sign of thunderstorm prospect at least before evening, I was looking to recording the hum of flies, but I found that the fly-hum I could hear was only in sunlit patches, which of course were slowly moving, so it didn't make sense to try to do a recording of that. Then, after my lunch I had a pee in the thicket just above my base and noticed that more fly hum was noticeable just up the slope. I went a little further up to a suitable spot that looked as though it was keeping its hum regardless of sunshine amount, so I took the recorder up there, starting recording 2.30. I was expecting to finish that at 4.30, but because of the huge amount of really tedious dog disturbance from around Fingle Bridge I decided to let it run till 5.0. By that time I'd decided it would be plain stupid to hang on into evening and night, when all my indications were that thunderstorms were very unlikely in the area in that time, and so I packed up and started my return. ================== <b>Advisory:</b> To hear the intricate detail of the multitude of very busy flies, do treat yourself by listening to this with high-grade headphones! <img alt="Lower Deer Stalker's Path during this recording" src="https://www.broad-horizon-nature.co.uk/200812_dappled_sunlight,_lower_deer_stalkers_path,_teign_gorge.jpg"> <i>The Lower Deer Stalker's Path during this recording. The recorder was just a little way up the quite steep slope off to the left of this view.</i> <b>Techie stuff:</b> The recorder was Sony PCM-D100, with two nested custom Windcut furry windshields. It was used on a lightweight Hama tripod. Initial post-recording processing was to apply an EQ curve to compensate for muffling from the furry windshields. <b>Please remember to give this recording a rating &#8212; Thank you! <img alt="" src="https://www.broad-horizon-nature.co.uk/me-icon_wink.gif"></b>