Cropton Forest Field Recordings

The following field recordings were taken in autumn 2022 by Simon Knighton and Nayan Kulkarni, with photography by Fiona Brehony. A wide range of microphones and techniques were used to capture a range of sounds from the location. We blended ambient stereo and close mics with contact microphones (that pick up physical vibrations directly), and hyrdophones (underwater microphones). The following files are mixed so that the various techniques fade in and out of one another, giving evolving perspectives on the environments they capture.

“In 2019, Forestry England brought a pair of Eurasian beavers from Scotland to Cropton Forest in Yorkshire for a revolutionary trial in natural flood management. Spanning five years, the trial will assess will the impact of the beavers’ activity on the long-term sustainability and maintenance of the “slowing the flow” artificial wooden dams. The dams have been helping to protect areas including nearby Pickering from flooding. This will be the first time in the United Kingdom that the effects beavers have on artificial dams has ever been studied” (Taken from the Forestry England website).