hornet-nest.wav

Here's a close-up recording of an active hornet nest, South West UK, mid-September.

The nest was initially constructed in the roof space of a bird table, but the hornets decided to extend the nest and did so by chewing through the wood to make room. The sounds of chewing were audible from nearby so I decided to rig up the microphones to see what I could detect. The mics were placed about 3 inches from the nest itself - yes, I am that brave! (Or stupid...)

The high sensitivity of my setup did cause clipping on some of the chewing sounds, but I don't feel it affects the end result. As this was in an urban setting, there are some other sounds present - a dog barking, birds and the passing of cars in the distance.

Post-recording processing:
Resampled from 24-bit to 16-bit, no other changes.

Recorded using a pair of Electro-voice RE27 N/D microphones feeding a home-made balanced low noise preamp, which in turn feeds a Steinberg UR22 MkII USB audio interface.