the open mic is in the inner city garden at 54 cambria road, camberwell, london

it hangs in an apple tree that leans across the garden. it captures dense interference of human, companion and wild species - hens, goldfinches, foxes, tits, bees - with flows of traffic from nearby roads

intense bird song early in the morning in spring, and talking and laughing, often loud, from the cambria pub on friday evenings and weekends in summer

at recess, you can hear children in the adjacent school yard, followed by a buzzer or bell

there is frequent overflight by jets on the approach to heathrow international airport, all the time except at night or during exceptional events such as volcanic ash clouds

periodically helicopters, dealing with emergencies at king's college hospital. they land in a field in ruskin park and the sound of the rotors is reflected off the faces of nearby buildings

family sounds punctuate all this now and then

when it rains, as it is raining just now, the rain is heard on foliage and on the top of the microphone housing, which is made of an old upside down tin plate

the camberwell stream is part of a global open mic network initiated and hosted by locus sonus

the ogg stream at http://locus.creacast.com:9001/london_camberwell.ogg can be pasted and opened in the free VLC player

or heard on the locustream sound map : london - camberwell

you may need to install the vorbis plugin first