Listening to the Landscape: Holbrook

Tucked away at the edge of the churchyard (behind a formidable growth of nettles and centuries old gravestones) are a number of bee hives. These were silent when I first saw them back in January, but on this sunny day in June they were alive with the coming and going of bees. I was careful not to disturb their work as I set up my equipment, and spent ten minutes watching them fly off across the fields (almost always in an Easterly direction). Also present in the recording is a police helicopter flying over, the usual aircraft coming and going from Luton and Stanstead and a rather vocal pigeon.

There are not many animal sounds connected to farming to be heard in modern-day Holbrook; with the exception of a few flocks of sheep. The sheep featured on this recording were down by the creek in a field close to the location of the old brick works. A footpath passes through the field they were being held in, and the inquisitive lambs would eyeball me as I strolled though towards the creek with my kit. I had spent a good few hours in the creek trying to discover if any underwater sounds could be found at high tide. As I followed the brook back towards the village I saw that a ewe and her two lambs were close to the fence eating the grass. I quickly popped my recorder onto the top of the gatepost and stood back. The animals were non-plussed about my presence, and continued eating and playing. I’m not sure I have ever really watched sheep up close for any length of time – it is amazing just how much grass they eat and how quickly. You can hear the sound of them tearing it from the ground on the recording (which was cut a little shorter than I would have liked thanks to a  sudden downpour of rain). Other lambs can be heard calling out in the distance along with birdsong, the Royal Hospital School bells and the ubiquitous drone of garden machinery. I am unsure of the breed of sheep on the recording, but hope that they are Suffolks -  a breed that appear in Haruki Murakami’s 'A Wild Sheep Chase' (which I have recently reread).

This is the first of my village recordings to have taken place inside a building; that of All Saints Church. The church sits in the heart of the village, and is open to the public during the week for quiet reflection. I wanted to capture the ambiance of the building and to see if any sounds of the building creaking etc. could be heard. Despite trying on two occasions any interior sounds were largely absent. Instead, the thick walls filter out most of the the village soundscape, with the noise of a lawnmower, planes and passing cars being some of the only discernible sounds. This is in stark contrast to the bubbling atmosphere of services (especially the Christmas crib service). As the only visitor during that particular time of day, it was an immensely peaceful time. My recording equipment was positioned before the substantial memorial to Judge John Clench (c. 1535 - 1607). Clench owned land in and around Holbrook and was an English judge, a Serjeant-at-Law, Baron of the Exchequer and Justice of the Queen's Bench during the late Tudor period. Clench was present at the hearing of Margaret Clitherow of York; a catholic woman accused of harbouring Catholic but who refused to to enter a plea. She was subsequently pressed to death by a sharp rock being placed under her back, her own front door placed over her body and a huge weight of rocks and stones piled on top. It is said that it took her 15 minutes to die and that her body was left like this for six hours. She was pregnant with her fourth child at the time. I would like to extend by gratitude to the Reverend Jenny Seggar for allowing me to record on church property.

A welcome sound returned to the village on Wednesday 8th May when I heard the familiar scream of a swift for the first time in 2024. I grew up in and semi-rural town on the outskirts of Birmingham, and I'm pretty sure I hadn't heard a swift until we moved to Suffolk. And back in 2015 they were pretty hard to miss. I can remember being mesmerised by the regular summer evening 'screaming parties' where gangs of birds would terrorise the skies by chasing each other around. Often they would fly straight at the East facing wall of our house before suddenly pulling out of their kamikaze mission to fly vertically up and away. In 2018, a neighbour found an exhausted bird on their lawn that was unable to take off and so at risk of being attacked by a dog. Between us (after consulting the internet) we managed to fling it skyward and see it shoot off in pursuit of the others. In 2022 I began noting the date on my calendar as to the first day I noticed that they were back in Holbrook. In 2022 it was the 10th May, in 2023 it was the 11th of May and (as already mentioned) it was the 8th May. I also record my sightings on the free swift-mapper app, and this year received a swift box. Alas, the box remains on the ground at present as I work up the courage to scale a tall enough ladder to fix it into position. I haven't kept records beyond these past three years, but it is clear that there are fewer swift above my house than nine year's ago. My feeling is that there were 30+ birds in 2015 and, so far, in 2024 I have counted a maximum of ten in the sky at any one time. The swift is globally threatened with UK numbers having fallen by some 40% over the last decade. Their decline has been linked to the fall in insect numbers and nesting sites in older buildings. In 2021 the species was added to the red list of the 2021 UK Conservation Status Report. What can be done to improve their chances? The recording below was made on Sunday 19th May 2024 in my garden, and features swift making the occasional dramatic flyby, a variety of garden birds and pollinators visiting our rodedendrum bush. I think the swift might be microphone shy as this was my seventh attempt to record them...

This recording was made between 5:05 and 5:25am on Sunday 5th May 2024 down at Holbrook Creek as part of the Reveil 11 ‘24 hour global broadcast’ of the dawn chorus (the official sunrise time at the creek was 5:16 am). It was really misty when I set up my gear on a fallen tree on the northern shore of the river Stour. The mist gradually lifted and the birdsong began from the mudflats in front and the woodlands behind. The creek was once a working environment with a brickworks and a couple of jetties that transported agricultural goods from Suffolk to London and received London’s refuse in return. The rubbish included horse muck which was spread on the land, but also included broken pottery which today can still be found on the surface of the fields. The brickworks and transportation links are long gone, but this tidal river is a haven for birds and enjoyed by visitors from the local villages. In total, I recorded for over an hour at the location and the Merlin app identified the following birds (not all will feature in this recording): Blackbird, Robin, Greater Whitethroat, Blue Tit, Wood-Pigeon, Dunnock, Carrion Crow, Ring-necked Pheasant, Wren, Great Tit, Blackcap, Common Cuckoo, Black-headed Gull, Marsh Warbler, Rook, Skylark, Goldfinch, Chiffchaff, Graylag Goose and Oystercatcher.

Holbrook Creek sits within the Suffolk Coast & Heaths National Landscape (formerly called an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty). The landscape is predominantly ancient estate farmlands, with salt marshes and intertidal mudflats. The mudflats are an important winter feeding area for estuary birds, wild fowl and waders. This recording was made on a particularly windy Wednesday afternoon whilst testing my equipment for an upcoming dawn chorus broadcast. I sat upon one of the many fallen trees that, thanks to coastal erosion, now haunt the shorline. From the tree I was able to see across the river into Essex, and occasionally thought I could see the sunlight glinting on Grayson Perry's 'House for Essex'. [This field recording was recorded to showcase the natural sounds heard in a rural setting. It features no human voices. No monies will be made from the recording. Please contact me if you have any concerns]

A 2012 hedgerow report states Holbrook had 468 hedges running for a total a distance of 41km (25 miles) within the parish. They are nature's corridors and provide cover for animals to move between habitats. They also provide shelter for walkers seeking a brief refuge from the wind that often rips across the open fields. Holbrook's hedges line many of the footpaths and roads in and around the village. This recording captures the sounds within a hedge on a grey morning in February. I was enthralled by the bird sounds the recording captured within ten minutes. The sounds within the hedge were totally different to those outside of it. The Merlin bird app identified: blue tit, great tit, song thrush, magpie, rook, robin, jackdaw, graylag goose, long-tailed tit, blackbird, mistle thrush, goldfinch and jackdaw. Also present is the drone of a leaf blower, a tractor and two flights passing overhead: one from Heathrow to Vienna and one from Budapest to Stanstead. More information about Suffolk's hedgerows can be found here: https://suffolkbis.org.uk/hedgerow [This field recording was recorded to showcase the natural sounds heard in a rural setting. It features no human voices. No monies will be made from the recording. Please contact me if you have any concerns]

The latest of my modern day field recordings was made and uploaded on Wednesday 7th February. It explores the sounds of water within the parish. The Merlin app identified: robin, skylark, blue tit, great tit, grey wagtail, blackbird, mistle thrush, chaffinch, rook, goldfinch, wren, coal tit, siskin and song thrush. A deer stood stock still and watched me from a distance of 300m. A buzzard flew out from the trees above my head and out to perch and wait and watch. Watch and wait. [This field recording was recorded to showcase the natural sounds heard in a rural setting. It features no human voices. No monies will be made from the recording. Please contact me if you have any concerns]

Work, windy weather and a very tickly cough made field recording a little tricky this week. However, I took inspiration from it being the RSPB 'Big Garden Birdwatch' to capture a recording of my garden whilst we tallied up the starlings, sparrows and other winged visitors to our garden. Also present in the recording are some very hungry chickens (we fed them soon after). I know at least six other village houses with chickens, and wonder how this compares with life in the village a century ago? Did every house keep domestic fowl for easy access to eggs? [This field recording was recorded to showcase the natural sounds heard in a rural setting. It features no human voices. No monies will be made from the recording. Please contact me if you have any concerns]

The third week of January 2024 was a cold one in Suffolk. The ice permeated deep into the soil. We wrapped up warm as bitter Northerly winds screamed across fields and howled down chimneys. This recording is of an air source heat pump that had started to freeze. The clicking sound is that of the fan catching on the ice as it rotates with some birdsong in the distance. It created a satisfying, drifting, rhythm until warmer air came and defrosted the machine. This recording was captured at 7am on Wednesday 17th January on a Zoom h1n when the air temperature was around -1c (it had been as low as -5c). I had attempted to record the sound the previous night, but the icy conditions were causing the Zoom recorder to make popping sounds as its plastic case started to freeze. [This field recording was recorded to showcase the natural sounds heard in a rural setting. It features no human voices. No monies will be made from the recording. Please contact me through my website if you have any concerns - https://www.matthewshenton.co.uk]

A field recording session from the grounds of All Saints Church in Holbrook (Suffolk, UK) made on the morning of the 13th January 2024 at 8am. It was a cold, dull morning with a light wind. A fox ran between the gravestones as I entered the grounds. Three planes flew overhead: from Wroclaw and Krakow towards Stanstead, and one from Stanstead to Vienna. Village sounds heard include the flagpole rattling at the fire station, a distant bird scarer and the chimes of the Royal Hospital School clock. The Merlin app by Cornell Birds identified the following birds: great tit, blue tit, long tailed tit, robin, magpie and jackdaw. [This field recording was recorded to showcase the natural sounds heard in a rural setting. It features no human voices. No monies will be made from the recording. Please contact me if you have any concerns]

A field recording session from Hales Grove in Holbrook (Suffolk, UK) made on the morning of the 6th January 2024. It was cold and bright day with very little wind. I disturbed a large herd of roe deer as soon as I entered the trees, and something was having a good rustle under some ivy. The Merlin app by Cornell Birds identified the following birds: common buzzard, great tit, blue tit, coal tit, song thrush, rook, long tailed tit, robin, goldfinch, jay. It also identified redwing and treecreeper (not sure about these two). This recording is part of an Arts Council England funded project. More information can be found here: https://www.matthewshenton.co.uk/holbrook