Hi everybody!
I'm just getting into field recording, and the BWCA has been a big inspiration, particularly an amazing night on Lady Boot Bay. I'm hoping to bring my new kit along on a trip this summer.
Do any of you record?
I'd like to hear what works and what doesn't from anyone with that kind of experience, and it would be great to hear some recordings.
Like pictures, it'll never do the real thing justice, but it makes for a nice souvenir!

I’ve thought about this in order to edit a soundscape. I’ve figured that I would need a good shotgun mic to get what I want. What mic are you taking?

I just bought a matched stereo pair of Clippy EM172s from micbooster.com for about $150. They are clip on lavalier mics that are omnidirectional. I guess the capsules in these mics are really popular because of their low self noise and affordability, and I've heard some nice recordings others have made with them.
My goal is to record general ambience in stereo, hopefully with some wildlife or thunderstorms included, so these should be a good fit. Plus they're tiny!
What kind of sounds are you looking for? It would be fun trying to isolate specific sound sources with a shotgun mic. They're probably great for recording animals.

Yes, I was thinking of birds and other animals for the shotgun mic. Also interested in capturing other sounds such as water dripping off a paddle and a campfire. More isolation might let me mix with more control later. But I can also see wanting to record omnidirectional ambient sounds. We have a Zoom H2N that my wife mostly uses to document meetings. I wonder how it would do as a compact unit. It is really a great time to do this with the quality and size of digital gear.

Those clippy mics do look interesting. I guess the thing to do is experiment at home. I think I have a similar set of small capsule mics that are on flexible wires to record a local chorale’s concerts. But the Zoom’s builtin mics have been so good that I haven’t used them lately. Plus, I’ve been avoiding recording concerts because the post concert work gets to be too much time.

May not be exactly what you are asking for but I have shot some video which captures the audio also. While shooting a moose you can hear her calling her calf.

we were camped under a tree with a bunch of owls that started making a racket in the middle of the night....that would unnerve a newbie or child.....
Anyway the second nite I brought our recorder into the tent in case they started up again...they did and I got several minutes of them carrying on.
It was fun sharing that with others.

dr bob

Yep, I have been recording for the last couple years. Got some great thunderstorms on Camel Lake, owls, grasshoppers on Agnes, waves crashing on a coast in Scotland, and lots of birds on the Superior Hiking Trail amongst some of the recordings. Just last weekend I got the sound of water running under ice at Jay Cooke State Park. Nothing like listening to the audio to really get me back into the setting of where I recorded it. Almost even better then any visual recording.

If you need some inspiration for amazing audio recordings of the outdoors, look up and listen to this guy, Gorden Hempton. I have a couple of his recordings and they are perfect, particularly his recording of Astrid Lake, MN on May 13, 1998.

All I have been using is my Iphone 7+. The recording has turned out well enough, but could be better. I'm looking into some of these microphones to get: Microphones for Iphone

I use a Tascam DR-40 for outdoor ambience recording. Decent on board mics and the option to use 2 external mics via 2 XLR inputs; if you want to pack them in. I also use the same recorder in a stacked setup with my Nikon DSLR, I have been generally satisfied with the results. It does make a big difference if you have a good DAW software suite for editing. I've used Sonar PE, Protools 11, but have recently migrated to Presonus Studio One 3. Studio One is proving to be a great move, enjoying everything about the workflow!

I'm glad to see the board has some audio fans! Good info too, I'm going to be sure to check out Gordon Hempton and I hadn't even thought of using my recorder with my dslr yet!

Coyote Creek (soundcloud)
Here's my first attempt at nature ambience. I recorded it a couple of months ago at a park near my house. I set my Sony PCM-10 on a log on a frozen-over creek just after sunset and recorded with the internal mics. You can hear the water running underneath the ice (I stole your idea Minnesotian!), and I was lucky enough to get a pack of coyotes howling. Even luckier is that this happened between jet flyovers haha. I tried using a Sound Devices Mixpre D (2ch mic amp/mixer) with some cheap buzzy Audix mics, but the Sony's mics were better. The results were still very noisy, so I had to get creative in Pro Tools to make it more listenable. Hopefully new mics and some good practice will make for better results.