Hey John, for this trip I used a Wildtronics Parabolic mini. I chose it because of the size really. A larger dish would have enabled me to get better pinpointed sound but would have been a bigger burden to pack and carry around. I had an UsiPro inside the dish and would walk around with that and was able to point it at specific birds to focus the recording on them a bit better than just capturing the entire soundscape omnidirectionally.

I brought the MKH8060 because it’s a workhorse and sounds great and was the only directional mic I brought, but truthfully I think I only used it when using some of my other mics in a multi-mic recording rig.

I did not bring a blimp due do size and instead used smaller rycote baseballs or bigger fuzzies for my mics. For the Sennheiser I brought my pistol grip from the Rycote but just used a Rycote Softie with that. I did build a fairly elaborate rig that was probably not necessary, but allowed me to set up and tear down easily as it used quick release connections between my tripod (3 legged things Travis), my recorder and my mics in various configurations.

Hope that helps! Maybe I’ll do a deeper dive into my mobile recording rig in a future post.

brad

Also, in contrast, was the Sennheiser MKH 8060 used for recording more precise sources like the geyser? If so, could you share your complete setup for that mic, including the blimp and any other accessories you used?

Thank you!
J.