2017—Music To My Ears

One of the new “toys” I brought with me to Bosque del Apache was a shotgun microphone capable of recording the sounds of the birds as I made a video of them.  The in-camera mic is insufficient to record more than the slightest sounds so I  knew I needed a more sophisticated microphone to capture the calls of the birds.  Until now, I haven’t tried creating videos.  My first challenge was installing the AA battery into the microphone which I was unable to do before I left home.  I was so frustrated I almost returned the microphone before ever using it.  I wondered if it was that difficult to install, how could I manage using it?   I decided to wait and ask Moose to help me.  I found out that the rechargeable battery I was attempting to install was just a smidge too thick; it requires a regular AA battery which Moose gave  me and which slipped right into the slot.

Monday afternoon at the Train Pond I got to test it out.  I must give all of the credit for this video to Moose Peterson.  The only thing I did to create this video was to affix the microphone to the camera.  Moose did everything else.  First, he set my camera to the proper microphone and video settings; he found a good scene to video and composed the shot; and he started the recording. I did manage to end the recording without incident.  And, I was taking still shots of this scene before Moose intervened and urged me to start making videos.  This video features Sandhill Cranes silhouetted against the setting sun and feeding on morsels in the pond. A few birds fly into the background and one sort of photo-bombs the scene as he struts in front of the feeding pair, then reenters and joins in the feeding.  The background sounds of the Sandhill Cranes are music to my ears.