154 An Exeter garden awakes

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We captured this passage of time on a visit to some friends in Exeter last year in April during a spell of fine weather. It turned out to be a silky soft recording of a spring garden at dawn.

It’s about 5am and the garden birds are just starting to sing against a backdrop of high circling seagulls. From here, the still sleeping city of Exeter exudes a panoramic aural presence. A wide, steadily murmurating vail of grey brown noise, that’s reflecting, and reflecting again off the many parapet walls of the neighbourhood’s buildings. 

We left the mics, as usual, to record alone overnight. Positioned on grass, a few metres from a wooden slatted fence and a pink cherry blossom, they witness the comings and goings of the resident birds. Tuneful robins, who by chance perch on the edges of their territories and sing at each other, like operatic performers, to the left and the right of scene. 

How charmingly familiar is their song. How liquid. Often shimmery, like sunlight tilted through sliding raindrops.