London Sound Survey : Wildlife Sounds

Many of you will know about the excellent London Sound Survey, the website that aims to document contemporary and historic sounds from the UK’s capital. I’m an avid reader of the site and the great work that Ian Rawes (its creator) is doing there. Recently Ian opened a new Wildlife section featuring the sounds of London’s wildlife. One of the great things about our capital are it’s many parks and wildlife reserves – many of which have sprung up almost organically and been curated by local people. Read more

Gresley N2 Tank

This is a beautiful little (Big) engine. I just love the colour and the lining. This recording was made at the Great Central Railway. Just before my partner and I went for an evening meal on the train.

We’d wandered down to the Loughborough shed from Loughborough central station and the engine was just having its fill of water for the trip. Sadly I had to edit out the filling because a) it takes way too long and b) there was a car in the background. Read more

LNER Class O4 Departs Quorn

LNER Class O4 63601 Departs Quorn

I love this engine… it makes a great noise. At the start of this recording you can almost hear it saying “I can do it, I can do it” as as if from a Thomas the Tank Engine story… it then struggles, hisses and pants up the incline from Quorn with a full train finally celebrating with an exhausted “whistle” somewhere past the Rushey Lane bridge. Read more

Name that Train!

Sometimes I make a recording that for some reason or other (usually because I forget to take pen and paper – or because the sound of me writing is too noisy) I can’t identify. If you have an ear for recognising steam or diesel locomotives and fancy a game of “Name that Train” the head on over to the Name that Train page where you can hear the files I can’t identify. Read more

Thunder, Rain and Planes

Summer rain – it’s the best type of rain, especially when your water butt is getting low! I’d just returned from a walk in the countryside when the heavens opened with a crack of thunder and lightning, the rain soon started to tap away on our aluminum garden patio furniture set. Read more

London Sound Survey

I had this great idea about a year ago: Wouldn’t it be great if there was an audio version of the geograph project. A visual map of the UK divided into grids with each grid offering a sound recording made from that location. Read more