The Bird Song

Their first project involved recording the sound of the Lute (a European string instrument) at a national park in New South Wales. At the park,the couple spent more than two months photographing,recording music and discovering local birdsong. “I clearly remember one of our first mornings,standing in the semi-darkness of pre-dawn,listening to Spiny-cheeked Honeyeaters calling to each other across the ridgelines. Those beautiful cascading ripples of sound were a revelation to us,” Skeoch says. These sounds were later compiled into the album Rockpool Reflection,which had a mixture of music and bird songs. The project soon made its way to retailers who the couple approached. “The feedback was mixed. Listeners loved it for the gentle music and birdsong. However,since it was the early 90s,retailers viewed it as a ‘new-age’ album. We found ourselves being overlooked in favour of mass-selling ‘inspired-by-nature,relaxation music’ artists,” he says.

Soon,they moved out of their small cottage and into a four-wheel drive for a year on the road. “For our next album,we thought of compiling music completely from nature sounds. With music,nature sounds become relegated as ‘atmospheric background’ for most listeners. The music was a distraction – it had to go,” Skeoch says. Tall Forest was their first purely nature sound CD which had sounds of owls and possums. This has now been followed by over 50 albums and nearly 20 years of nature sound recording.

Ask him about how easy it is to get permissions and he says,“ In Australia,no permissions are required. But in India,we got to work at National Parks only after speaking to authorities at various levels.” In India,the couple have recorded birdsong in Rann of Kutch,Nagarhole,Karnataka,Goa and the Deccan region.