Frogs At Night

A frog concert occurs at night on the banks of a tucked-away area of Lake Cerknica, an intermittent lake that completely disappears during the dry summer months. Capturing the frog chorus sound was not a simple task and presented some interesting challenges. I spent almost a week moving around the lake, visiting specific sites, and camping outside while trying to document all of the special sounds found here. Since day one, I was after frog sounds, but the conditions were not suitable to get a clean recording. The weather has presented some early spring showers during the day, while the nights were pretty windy over the surrounding hilltops, which introduced a great deal of (natural) noise into the background. The lake area is large, and the frogs’ singing is not present everywhere, so I needed to pay attention and find a spot where they were located. In addition, a significant portion of the lake area overlooks a distant village, causing noise pollution from the road to travel a considerable distance, rendering most of it unsuitable for a clean recording. Having visited the area numerous times, I had already established specific areas most sheltered from the outside noises. On day 5, the weather had finally calmed down, and I found a good spot on the shore edge to leave the mics overnight. The conditions were pretty good, and the frogs were performing their chorus, but not everything was perfect. For instance, some mice and other animals were walking on the forest floor with dry leaves, resulting in a crunchy noise during a significant portion of the recording, which interfered with the clear sound of the frog’s chorus. This one-hour part was the most clean, and I am pretty satisfied with it. Next time, it might be best to use the boat and stay away from the shore, but im sure this would present another set of challenges. Be mindful about the volume level as the frog chorus has some louder parts later in the recording.