During the eclipse of 1999 I was on some scaffolding in Islington, London, applying mastic to a block of flats. What I noticed at the time was that as well as the change in light, the sound changed too with everything, traffic, birds, people, becoming quieter. So 27 years later I decided that I wanted to try to capture that change in ambience. I found a quiet place on the map not far from where I live and walked on the footpaths to a gap in the hedgerow outside Pebmarsh, Essex.

The eclipse happens in the middle of this recording, and listen to hear if you can detect any change, amongst the aircraft. There is a lovely treat at the end of the recording if you're in to birds.

It’s 10pm and I’m in the graveyard of St.Mary’s amongst the stones, I’ve tried to position myself near the image location but also not on any graves, it’s so quiet that even my notepad paper sounds loud as I write on it, the very distant A12 drone off to the north, a distant jet above, everything here is quiet which is letting sounds from further away be heard, the occasional passing car, no birds, no bats, no wind in the trees, no people passing.

A long pause of not much, and then the silhouette of a bat above the nave, not a cloud in the sky, something crawling on my leg, the porch light, the weather vane, a flag pole with no flag, the silhouette of the Church, crenellations, a car door slams somewhere in the village, I saw a lot of dog walkers, walkers, joggers as I arrived but now no one, rural places always go to sleep early, 10 is the cut off time here, it’s 9:30 in Sudbury, now I’m almost unable to see what I am writing, Constable’s parents are buried just over there, it appears that time moves more slowly in quiet places but that’s not the case, that moth drawn to the recorder lights is moving in real time, someone with a torch, a flashing red light passing by on the road but I am unable to see what it is attached to, I’m having to be extra quiet with my movements and have definitely worn the correct clothing.

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Magpies call and respond, Moorhen, Mallards sleeping on the paving slabs, someone in the cafe already to set up for the day, no cars or jets, only tinnitus, I stay very still to encourage a Magpie to get closer which it does for a while but then flies over to Lock Island, one of the Mallards flies away, the Magpie comes back, a Squirrel comes by very close on the ground, inquisitive, and for millions of years I like to think that it was quiet, everywhere existed without explanation, water flowed downstream, reeds grew, habitats formed, species evolved. And then came people shouting at dogs and slamming gates, the cakes were delivered by a man in a truck, shareholders made a profit, Mallards moved in to the grass to preen and coat their feathers with oil, Squirrels squirrelling, Robin surveying it’s territory, a fly investigates the grains of wood on the table, distant Geese sound upset about something, I need to do more of this basking in the morning sun, a man on an electric scooter wearing a crash helmet, everything is growing imperceptibly slowly, a Bluebottle on my knee, now four Magpies investigating the grass, some white and grey clouds appear from the west and block out the warmth of the sun, a noisy maintenance van driving faster than the time I got told off for driving too fast down Flatford Road, a stack of correctly stored pallets, the Robin perched on top of the parasol, a maintenance man in hi-vis crosses the bridge to collect all of the bagged dog poo and replace the bin liner, a Cuckoo, an alarm on the Granary going off, a lady carrying empty cardboard boxes, two Crows join the exploration of the grass, they ignore the mic and camera tripods, a small black and white moth on my arm, a man with a red t-shirt walking towards the Granary, two men stop for a chat in the lane, a Pied Wagtail.

As this was an early morning recording there was a lot of bird sound, in addition to the above, Cuckoo, Goldcrest, Garden Warbler, Mistle Thrush, Marsh Warbler, Greenfinch, Canada Goose, Willow Warbler, Coal Tit, Song Thrush, Dunnock, Chiffchaff, Collared Dove, Blackbird, Goldfinch, Wren, Great Tit, Blue Tit, Woodpigeon, Jackdaw and Blackcap.

Thanks to Old Hall’s Dave Hodgson for making possible the chance to have an event in the Chapel and to be able to make a recording in the grounds.

Three men tasked with chopping the firewood, the threat of rain was hollow, and the sun has come out, a man driving the tractor, a Massey Ferguson 675, the wind gentler than last week but still bit gusty, children playing on the trampoline, the man on the tractor setting it up to chop some wood, all hands on deck to make the firewood the right size for its various uses, jackdaws congregating in the big gnarly tree above the lumberjacks, blue and white flowering Nettles, Comfrey on a big patch under the holly tree, all four men chopping the wood working in dependently, man vs wood, blade vs bark, the wood of the axe shaft a traitor? Or forced in to labour against its own kind, no choice in the matter, wood the rarest material in the universe, and one of the most useful, one man visited by a woman and then they both leave and head towards the Hall, a man in a wooly hat walking past whilst looking at the lumberjacks, technique is more important than strength, tractor is stronger than tecnique, the man with glasses walks away from the pile, two remaining men carry on, a man with a pony tail walks past with a watering can, a cold breeze arrives with a large cloud, a Sparrow inspecting the wood pile left by the man with the glasses, a couple with shoulder bags walk past, a silver car drives past, similar to the recording made near Gandish Road a few gusts start to appear near to the end of the recording, an hour seems like an awkwardly long time whilst in someone else’s domain as somewhat of an imposition even with a welcome from one of the community, would Constable have been ignored by the public whenever he was working in the field? The tractor stops and the man operating takes his ear defenders off, now I can hear the sound of children playing and more details of the wind in the trees, you could say that because more os the recording is full up with tractor engine that the visit was poorly timed but I accept that my experience is what happens whenever I am wherever, but I let the recording run on a little bit extra to see if I can get a nice excerpt sans combustion engine, thankfully I had a wee before the recording, Dave is coming back and gives me a wave, the bag couple comeback up the lane.

The forecast was for rain all day but after a period of a few hours with none I headed to Flatford. The clouds are great today and much more Constablesque with a wide variety of greys and shapes. As I was setting up there was some great interaction between some Song Thrushes, and some juvenile Moorhens on the water.

Some sightseers taking their photo with the Mill in the background, a Song Thrush again, a lady going past on her mobility scooter, restarting the recording because my alarm went off loudly and stopped the recording! Weird as I thought that the sound must have been coming from someone else’s phone before I realised it was from mine! Bees in the Comfrey, a Cuckoo, a couple take a photo, ask me what I was recording and then left straight away, then they came back and asked me if they could see Willy Lott’s House from this side of the river, a short rain shower with large drops, so I protect my kit with my cap and a cloth (well prepared!), a lad walking by with his hands in his pockets, the birds stopped singing after the ran, thunder, and now a Blackbird, the Cuckoo again as the wind picks up, the feeling that it’s going to lash it down, a man with 2 black Labradors walking past whilst looking at his phone the whole time, a hoverfly by the mic, a Moorhen, precipitation being blow from the willow trees above me, I’m on the edge of my seat with anticipation as the wind gusts and the thunder rolls around but the rain holds off, there are no hoards of tourists now as there were last week in the blazing sunshine (so I heard on various platforms), just crows, the storm is moving northward, swathes of cloud, gusts of wind bending the trees, pockets of blue sky now appear between the cloud, lightning to the west, ten seconds away, a Mallard on the mill pond, small spits of rain return as a man power walks past, we exchange nods, a man smoking a cigarette at the back of the Field Studies Centre looking over curiously, the same building that they said was out of bounds and as such I couldn’t record from there, wind ripples and rain drops on the water surface, three Magpies landing on the path to forage, there is two minutes to go until the hour is up and the rain is getting heavier, a jogger, the Mallard lands on the wall and stretches out its wings, several times, still some distant thunder and gusts in the trees but fading now, the Magpies chatter in the trees, the Cuckoo returns.

As part of the Constable Ambisonic project I want to understand how we perceive the landscape, and what did Constable and his contemporaries bring to our understanding of the natural world, and who else has contributed to the language used and ideals we hold in regard to perception of landscape. Here I talk to painter Simon Carter at his studio in Frinton-on-Sea in Essex. We discuss a variety of topics including the Essex landscape, repetition in walking and music, abstract works, and of course, Constable.

It’s 26º and a half term which of course I could never have predicted when I put this date in the calendar in January, the leisure class are out in full effect, a carousel and a Thomas train ride for the kids, a man setting up deck chairs for hire, a couple having a heavy conversation, gulls, a man having a loud conversation on his phone ‘Yeah, I had a good nights sleep!’, a woman in sandals walking on the gravel beach, a jet ski heading west, a light aircraft heading east, a family man staring at me for an unhealthily long time, messages from work colleagues, screams from the rollercoaster on the pier, it’s hard to relax in to the moment with so many people around, I’m constantly looking out of my peripheral vision for potential encounters, the carousel playing ‘Hokey Cokey’, a paddle boarder, an open top bus, people on a double sea kayak slightly out of sync with their paddle strokes, a man that is ‘curious’ takes a CA card and then apologises for farting before walking off, a sight seeing boat full of people going dangerously close to the kayak and making it bob up and down in the wake, a large waft of herbage, a large waft of waffles, squeaky flip flops, four girls walking either side of the microphone, four boys walking to one side of the microphone, ‘Rocking All Over The World’, someone with a heavy foot driving a sports car, a group of teenagers with a boom box, an Enforcement Officer, a lady looking out to sea.

I was flying to Guernsey with a guy called Steve to do some work for a furniture company but arrived at Gatwick just as the flight was taking off. We had to phone the boss to say that we'd missed the flight. He was livid but organised to get us on to the next available flight which was in 8 hours time. He had to wait in Guernsey with a van full of £3000 wardrobes and angry customers, whilst we waited in Gatwick for the next flight. I whiled away the time by making recordings and writing poetry.

Myself and Matt Shenton headed down to Flatford in the pitch black at 4am to set up fr the annual Reveil Dawn Chorus Global Stream, light came quickly and stealthily once it started, as did the birds, many birds were heard and seen including a Kingfisher, the Merlin bird app detected a Curlew but we were so sure about that, and then came colour, and then the coffee and croissants, I was woefully underprepared.

Off-peak the natural world carries on regardless of our observations, the gates to the Car Park open in a few hours and the joggers and dog walkers are not out yet, we all have our motivations for getting out of doors, of bed.

The white noise of the Mill Race a constant, last nights rain almost a run away or evaporated, Blackcap and Mistle Thrush, Goldfinch and Wren, might have a renaissance as the geopolitical outlook is looking particularly grim and dangerous, if civilisation implodes it should hand the baton of dominance back to the birds, I doubt they’ll be singing our song in the future, a very small spider like the kind that used to frequent wooden windowsills in the 90’s crawls around my cuff, and then inside it, moments later it has decided that wasn’t a good idea so it crawls back out again and up my arm towards my collar.

I stop writing to just sit and listen for the last half an hour.

On my walk back to the car I see a lady jogging with a large dog, and two ladies that have opened the gate to the car park. ‘Morning!’