Listen to Africa is a 24,000-kilometre cycling expedition, recording African sounds and voices.
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About the sound recordings part II: natural soundscapes (biophonies) In part II of this series, we look at natural soundscapes created by living creatures, and why we’re keen to record more and more of them.
The journey so far As we’ve now had visitors from over 100 countries and as quite a few of you have only recently started visiting the site, I thought now would be a good time to say hello, welcome, and we hope you enjoy following our journey over the next couple of years.
The podcast, and other website updates While we’ve been waiting for our parcel to arrive, we’ve spent a lot of our time working on the website. Among the developments, there’s a new podcast feed and a new microblog section.
The merry nutcrackers 
On the way from Sidi Ifni to Guelmim in southern Morocco, we cycled past a women’s cooperative extracting oil from argan nuts. We went in to meet the women, get laughed at and repeatedly bash our fingers with a heavy rock. You can read (and watch a slideshow) about the cultural, environmental and economic importance of argan in Huw’s Spotlight: all about argan.
Recorded on: 18th June 2009, 14:00 local time.
Location: Between Sidi Ifni and Guelmim, southern Morocco (view on map)
Copyright: Listen to Africa
Soundscape: A short walk through Sidi Ifni at night 
Recording this was really an experiment / learning experience for us but we thought we’d post it anyway; we loved Sidi Ifni and hope these sounds evoke a little of its atmosphere. Main lesson learned: cycling sandals (with metal cleats sticking out of the bottom) make the worst possible footwear for a sound recordist…
Date and time recorded: 21:40 local time, 8th June 2009
Location: Sidi Idni, Morocco (view on map)
Copyright: Listen to Africa
Common Bulbul This has been our daily alarm call here in Agadir. This individual sits in the palm tree straight opposite our balcony and sings away until just after dawn, when other ambient noises increase. It only starts again in the evening, and then only briefly. We got a decent visual identification and we’re almost certain it’s a Common Bulbul; our slight doubts arise because this individual sounds quite different to the other Common Bulbuls we’ve heard here.
Species: Pycnonotus barbatus
Common name (English): Common Bulbul
Date and time recorded: 05:10 local time, 28th May 2009
Location: Apartment balcony, Agadir, Morocco (view on map)
Copyright: Listen to Africa
About the sound recordings part I: wildlife sounds 
As you may have already seen, this expedition has several focuses, and we’ll be using sound recordings to document a wide range of issues that interest us. In this blog, I’ll explain a bit about the wildlife recordings.
If you watched the film we posted yesterday, “A Time Comes”, you’ll have noticed that I was wearing one of my other hats (a climbing one rather than a cycling one…). Like many people, my interests and passions span several areas but there’s a common theme running through them. That is, a deep love of the natural world and a belief that, as one of my childhood heroes put it: “People protect what they love” (Jacques Cousteau).
