Dusk has come, and the Forest of Dean is, very gradually, darkening. Silence, like dew, is beginning to settle in the voids and hollows between the trees. Shadows, and echoes, are everywhere.

In the gathering dim, melodic song thrush, blackbirds, and some roosting wood pigeons are singing the last notes of the day. Sounding, from across this huge space, like they are already in a dream. 

Time passes. The hidden stream beside the oak  holding the microphones trickles, and flows, beneath tangled vines. High planes lazily traverse the velvet sky. Occasionally, cars distantly glide along the fast forest road, to the far right of scene. Filtered by so many trees they make a curved and wind-like hush. Then, in the distance, a dog's barking. And a lamb. Or did you just imagine it? A lamb deep in the forest? And the dog, was that really a dog? Perhaps it's just the dusk, casting dreams upon your senses.

But there's a woodcock! No mistake. It's the strangest of birds, making soft quack like calls as it speeds effortlessly between the treetops On its May-time roding flight. And an owl. Two owls. Hooting hollowly, in dusky echoes, from somewhere much deeper in the forest.

* This is a late evening segment from the 72 hour non-stop recording that we made last May, in the Forest of Dean. We found and recorded from the same oak tree that we tied our mics to back in 2019! You can hear that recording in episode 17, and compare how over those three years the sound-feel of the forest has changed.