Bæjarstaðaskógur (Farmsted forest) is a small forest in the east of Iceland, in Morsárdalur, in Skaftafell national park.
Morsárdalur, is a wide valley blanketed with woodland, contains multicolored rhyolite formations at Kjós valley, and the outlet glacier Morsárjökull with its creaking icefalls.
The forest’s name, Bæjarstaðaskógur, suggests that it used to be a farmstead during the Middle Ages and the ruins were quite visible until the 18th century.
Bæjarstaðaskógur is a beautiful oasis in the vast spread of sand. This 30 hectare forest is the most robust birch forest in Iceland, its birches can reaching 12 meters height. There are also Island’s straightest birches and the most precious. Bæjarstaðaskógur also has rowans and the most beautiful display of Icelandic wildflowers.
I have noticed that Redwing songs in this area is very different from other normal Redwing songs, even for whole Iceland. This Redwings stay in a small area, from the west side of the river Morsá to Bæjarstaðarskógur. Their song start with three or two falling pitch tone, always the same, before they start to sing in full blast.
If you are trained listener you will hear this Redwing song in this recording.
This is a 28 minutes part of seven hours long overnight recording. This part was recorded at 30th of May 2016, between 6 and 7 AM. About one minute after the recording start you will hear high rumbling sound from Morsárjökull glacier and with quality headphones you should hear rumbling sound many times. The mid range ambient noise is mostly rivers in mountains all around and Morsá in the valley. The white noise is a mic noise
This is a highly amplified recording. Recorded with MKH20 & NT1a, very close to each other at 52dB and then amplified again +30dB, so the sound is rather „flat“.
Quality open headphones are though recommended while listening at low level.
(256kbps / 54Mb)
Recorder: Sound Devices 788
Mics. Rode NT1a (NOS) & Senmnheiser MKH20 (AB40)
Pix: Canon EOS-M
Location: 64.059604, -17.026755
Weather: Mostly clear sky, calm, temp. around 2°C
HLJÓÐMYND - SOUNDIMAGE 
Very relaxing recording, which started to make me ‘nod-off’ to sleep, that was until I was sharply awoken by a bee in my right ear😀 Well done, loved it. I was surprised how powerful those glacier rumbles are, they sound similar to distant thunderstorms.
Thanks Lawrence.
I fall in sleep too when I was searching trough all this files.
Works better than any sleeping pills 🙂
Glacier rumbles can be pretty high, especially from this Morsár glacier, where ice regularly fall off a high cliff and down to the walley bellow.
Last summer I was probably 20-25km away the from the glacier. Suddenly the air was filled with „heavy thunders“ or „vibration“ which last in about 15 minutes. When I point my 300mm lens to the Morsár glacier I saw huge icebergs falling off the cliff into the walley.
This summer will I go closer to this glacier and try to record this breathtaking rumble in more detail.
Hope you are successful; I would love to hear some close-up recordings of the glacier.
Þetta er mjög athyglisvert hljóðrit. Þessi stofn skógarþrasta hlýtur að hafa einangrast um nokkurn tíma.
Það væri þægilegt að útskýra þetta með einangrun, en svo er ekki.
Það er auðveldast að heyra í þessum söng í nýgræðingi eða lággróðri á láglendi í miðjum dalnum þar sem gönguleiðin liggur yfir í Bæjarstaðaskóg. Hann er hinsvegar ekki mjög greinilegur þar sem trjágróðurinn er þéttur í Bæjarstaðaskogi.
Austan við Morsá sem að mestu rennur meðfram birkivöxnum og bröttum vestur-hlíðum Skaftafellsheiðar heyri ég ekki í þessum söng, allavega mjög lítið. Þar kemur í raun annarskonar söngur sem er orlítið frábruggðin söng fugla sunnan og austan Skaftafellsheiðar.
Ég ætla að reyna greina þetta betur næsta sumar ef ég fæ tima til þess. Þess vegna ætti ég ekki að segja meira fyrr en ég hef staðfest þetta með hljóðritum.
Thanks …. Best greeting from Hohenschwangau (without sounds)