Chris Watson recalls a near-fatal mistake he made on his first visit to Africa. "It was starlit, bright, and I couldn't see any hyenas. And so foolishly I thought I'll just go and get the microphones back, they're only 30 meters away".
In fact, the hyenas he was recording for a feature film soundtrack silently awaited him in the bushes.
"Fortunately the movement must have disturbed Francis (his Maasai guide) because he woke up, recognised I wasn't there and put the headlights on in the jeep," says Sheffield native Chris, revealing "six orange pairs of eyes". "Francis said 'never, never do that again' - and I didn't."
Having avoided becoming hyena food, Watson has built a stellar career in sound recording. You may have heard his work in several of David Attenborough's nature series. In other projects he combines field recordings in multichannel layers to create the soundscapes of long-ago or imaginary locations.
On this week's Off Topic podcast he sits down with Laurence Mackin to talk about his fascinating career in sound. He explains how he captures some particularly intimate recordings of wildlife, and why the songs of birds in European cities are slowly becoming identical to one another.
To hear the podcast visit Off Topic on iTunes or Soundcloud.
