A collection of Dawn and Dusk Choruses from the Okanogan region of Washington State.

Okanogan Joy

I like birds. What can I say?

All birds were recorded by me in the United States' beautiful Pacific Northwest state of Washington.

Avian Voices

A collection of long, unbroken soundscapes to soothe the working soul.

Soundscapes For The Working Mind

At 2.5 miles Ape Cave is the longest continuous lava tube in the contiguous United States, and the third longest in North America. Formed approximately 2000 years ago, it's difficult yet fun hike. From time to time I like to venture in and record all night (to avoid the disturbance of other hikers during the day).

In December 2017 I spent a night hiking and meditating through the cave with a good friend. There's nothing quite like the peace and quiet of a lonely cave to help you focus on your thoughts. It had been particularly rainy and snowy the previous couple of weeks, so there was a lot of saturated groundwater dripping through. In track four you'll hear the occasional thumps, splats, and smacks of a rather poorly placed backpack. Oops. Lesson learned.

Two years later, in November 2019 I returned for another night of hiking and recording. This time I made sure to avoid the splats and smacks on backpacks. It didn't hurt, too, that I had much longer cables and could rest farther down the tunnel and around a bend than I could previously.

Ape Cave

There is a tucked-away lake in a secluded little valley in a wildlife refuge in Northeast Washington where every sound rings through like bells in winter. A few days ago (mid-May, 2021) I happened to be recording shoreside at dawn when a pair of Ravens made their way in and around. Their intimate vocalizations and amused conversations make me smile, but I also feel a guilty as if I'm listening to a private conversation without they consent.

A Golden-crowned Kinglet, distant American Robins and Black-headed Grosbeaks, chatty Yellow Warblers, a Ruffed Grouse, and even a family of beavers also make a subtle appearance in this quiet scene, but the real story is the Ravens and their croaks, awks, uh-ohs, and ooks and their giant wing flaps.

Enjoy.

Raven at dawn

On the morning of 2021 May 17, I stepped out of my tent next to my favorite Okanogan wetland to collect a recorder and microphones I'd left attached to a pole the night. It was a cool, crisp Spring morning, but the life and voices of the marsh and lake were as active as always. This recording covers the Dawn Chorus, from 23 minutes before First Light (at 22:55, 04:46:58 PDT, click the comments below to playback directly) and through Sunrise (at 50:49, 05:14:41 PDT) for almost 90 minutes of what was really hours of singing and foraging.

The wind was light, and the cool air helped project voices across the lake. As always Red-winged Blackbirds, that most North American of wetland songbirds, flew about, singing, chasing, and defining territories. I was delighted to hear a Brewer's Blackbird, a shy cousin of the Red-winged, popping in and out of the mix. Their quick almost mechanical sounding songs can be easy to miss and often confused with a squeak of a fence. They have two prominent songs, a hinge-like squeak (23:39), and a soft "shuk-shuuk" like a film camera auto-winding between frames (24:29). For the '80s kids among us, I think it sounds more like a Kodak Disc Camera, but I digress...

Also hanging out, literally, are a pair of bats just trying to get some sleep (52:14 and later). I would have easily confused their audible chatter for the Tree Swallows that harried them endlessly, but watching it happen with my own eyes confirmed what I later heard on the recording. The 15 foot pole was topped by a large bucket to be used as a nesting box for waterfowl. This morning chattery Tree Swallows were using it as a resting spot between aerial acrobatics. The sleeping bats clinging to the underside of the bucket, however, did not like this idea and would angrily chatter and chase them away, at least until they finally fell fast asleep themselves.

Speaking of chatter boxes, a Song Sparrow (23:31) took up residence on a nearby shrub and lived up to his name, delivering clear variations of his song, playing with melody like a maestro. A Common Yellowthroat (43:47) flew in and out of the same shrub, trying to sing in or around the Sparrow, but his anxious warble never quite had the same thrilling clarity.

Songbirds aren't the only residents here, though. Across the lake, Canada Geese fly in-and-out, bringing their echoing honks with them, Pied-billed Grebes whoop-whoop almost seemingly out of control (47:12).

Prominent voices in this recording include Song Sparrows, Red-winged Blackbirds, Brewer's Blackbirds, Common Yellowthroats, Canada Geese, and Pied-Billed Grebes. When there's a lull in the background the occasional Western Meadowlark, Chickadee, Spotted Towhee, Chipping Sparrow, Yellow Chat, Tree Swallow, Mallard, American Wigeon, and Wood Duck.

Okanogan Wetland Morning

Recently I had the pleasure to spend several days recording on the wonderfully-named Skull and Crossbones Ridge in the Loomis Natural Resources Conservation Area in Okanogan County. The ridge marks a fascinating intermix of three dominant habitats in the NRCA: subalpine wet meadow, mountain sagebrush scrub, and forest consisting of Lodgepole Pine, Subalpine Fir, and Alpine Larch.

Due to an approaching ridge of low pressure, it was fairly windy all day, every day, but there were a few distinct moments of still air. Surprisingly, and delightfully, one of those moments was across the Dawn (First Light to Sunrise) period. Because I haven't shared a long recording recently, the first track in this playlist is a "Long Dawn". Being just after Summer Solstice, First Light was at 0409 on this day, 2021 June 25. The recording itself begins in near-silence at 0341, with the first local bird voice coming from an awakening American Robin about 15s in. Most of the nearby nesters have dispersed well-before sunrise at 0457, but the mountain winds were beginning their return. I let the recording continuer nearly another half-hour until 0526 to hear the onrush of cooler mountain flowing across the ridge.

Some of the many voices you'll hear in this recording are American Robins, Chipping Sparrows, White-crowned Sparrows, Brewer's Sparrows, Dark-eyed Juncos, Washington Ground Squirrels, Clark's Nutcrakers, Ruby-crowned Kinglets, Swainson's Thrushes, a Western Wood Pewee, possibly a Vesper Sparrow, and also quite possibly me coughing from a distance of around 250 feet (76m) because I just can't keep myself quiet.

On an enjoyment note, because we're currently undergoing an historic once-in-a-thousand-years heatwave here in Seattle I was forced to lightly master these recordings on headphones whilst fans blast me from all angles in my little studio room.  I'm not suggesting that you should *only* listen to them on headphones, but they'll likely translate best that way. My mastering doesn't involve a whole lot of processing, mostly just some low-end control when it's extra-windy and critical choices about how to decode from double mid-side (my preferred recording method) to stereo for SoundCloud playback, but it's enough that listening on a nice set of headphones will give you a closer approximation of what I heard when I clicked "upload".

As always, if you like something you hear and would like to license it or something similar for use or simply download it for further listening enjoyment, feel free to reach out to me by direct messaging here on SoundCloud or clicking one of my far-too-many social media connections above.

Happy listening!

Northwest Soundscapes

Loomis NRCA Long Dawn

Brewer's Sparrow, Spizella breweri, is a highly abundant Sagebrush steppe bird of North America, yet it's more likely heard than seen. Tiny and well-matched for hiding the bunches it calls home, they are just as comfortable clambering through Sagebrush like rodents as they are fluttering from one low bush to another. I had my first encounter with in a high subalpine Sagebrush meadow in the Okanogan Mountains last week.

Their mirthful, playful, bubbling voices are a joy and a delight to encounter. The song seems to tumble uncontrollably out of their mouths as they teeter back-and-forth on the swaying tips of sage stalks or other thin vegetation. In fact, the sheer effort of the song seems to prevent them from sitting still, and their heads twist and turn with every phrase. 

This performance is actually several male Brewer's Sparrows singing or counter-singing to one another. I've clean-processed the recording for clarity as there was some swing-distortion and multiple distances involved, but the integrity of the performances are left as-is. 

The idea of cleaning and processing birdsong is controversial in some circles as it "removes the bird from the environment it sings in". I agree with that sentiment, but I also record lots of soundscapes which showcase just that voice-environment relationship. I want to highlight the song itself and present it as clearly and intelligibly as possible while still maintaining the integrity of the bird's voice itself. Consider this a love note to the bird's voice, not the bushes and meadows.

Also, I sell and use sound effects. Sound designers in a hurry much more prefer something they can drop-in and use than anything they'll need to clean themselves. Oh yeah, feel free to message directly in SoundCloud or click on one of my too-many social media buttons to contact me if you'd like to learn more. Happy Listening!

Read more about Brewer's Sparrows at All About Birds:
www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Brewers_Sparrow/

image credit: "873 - BREWER'S SPARROW (11-8-2018) socorro co, nm -08" by Sloalan is marked with CC0 1.0

Northwest Birds

Brewer's Sparrow Performance

The Willow Flycatcher, Empidonax traillii, looks as most Tyrant Flycatchers do: challenging, daring you to identify it. The Tyrant Flycatchers all bear a striking resemblance to one another, with some species being almost impossible to discern until they open their beaks to sing. Their buzzy, sharp, staccato syllables are as key to correctly identifying one as the bright patterns and colorations on more vibrant birds.
Unlike most songbirds, Flycatchers don't learn their songs from their parents, but are born knowing it. Willow Flycatchers play a key role in testing this as researchers raised chicks from hatchling hearing only the songs of other Flycatchers, yet as they matured they knew and sang the Willow Flycatcher fitz-pew as if they'd never heard anything else.

Read more about Willow Flycatchers at All About Birds: https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Willow_Flycatcher/

If you'd like to hear more or license bird sounds for your project, feel free to message me directly in SoundCloud or click on one of my too-many social media buttons. Happy Listening!

Image Credit "578 - WILLOW FLYCATCHER (6-4-08) carrizo, saucito ranch lower spring, carrizo plain nat mon, slo co, ca" by Sloalan is marked with CC0 1.0

Willow Flycatcher

I don't often share the process I go through in prepping bird recordings for licensing and presentation, so I thought I'd share an A-B demonstration. In rapid-fire succession here are a number of Willow Flycatcher song clips, each immediately followed by the original.

The Willow Flycatcher, Empidonax traillii, looks as most Tyrant Flycatchers do: challenging, daring you to identify it. The Tyrant Flycatchers all bear a striking resemblance to one another, with some species being almost impossible to discern until they open their beaks to sing. Their buzzy, sharp, staccato syllables are as key to correctly identifying one as the bright patterns and colorations on more vibrant birds.

Unlike most songbirds, Flycatchers don't learn their songs from their parents, but are born knowing it. Willow Flycatchers play a key role in testing this as researchers raised chicks from hatchling hearing only the songs of other Flycatchers, yet as they matured they knew and sang the Willow Flycatcher fitz-pew as if they'd never heard anything else.


Read more about Willow Flycatchers at All About Birds: https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Willow_Flycatcher/

The idea of cleaning and processing birdsong is controversial in some circles as it "removes the bird from the environment it sings in". I agree with that sentiment, but I also record lots of soundscapes which showcase just that voice-environment relationship. I want to highlight the song itself and present it as clearly and intelligibly as possible while still maintaining the integrity of the bird's voice itself. Also, I sell and use sound effects. Sound designers in a hurry much more prefer something they can drop-in and use than anything they'll need to clean themselves.

If you'd like to hear more or license bird sounds for your project, feel free to message me directly in SoundCloud or click on one of my too-many social media buttons. Happy Listening!

Image Credit "578 - WILLOW FLYCATCHER (6-4-08) carrizo, saucito ranch lower spring, carrizo plain nat mon, slo co, ca" by Sloalan is marked with CC0 1.0

Willow Flycatcher Cleaning

If you've ever been in a Northern forest and thought you heard some tiny creature maniacally laughing at you, chances are it was the Golden-crowned Kinglet, Regulus satrapa. A hardy yet tiny bird, the Golden-crown Kinglet is found throughout the boreal forest of North America. I happened to record this little fellow on the Olympic Peninsula where they are resident in June of 2021.

This is a clean-processed recording. All background sound and noise has been carefully removed in an effort to focus on the bird's voice. 

Read more about Golden-crowned Kinglets at All About Birds: https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Golden-crowned_Kinglet

If you'd like to hear more or license bird sounds for your project, feel free to message me directly in SoundCloud or click on one of my too-many social media buttons. Happy Listening!

image credit: "707 - GOLDEN-CROWNED KINGLET (6-2-2015) franklin co, maine -01" by Sloalan is marked with CC0 1.0

Golden-crowned Kinglet

A tiny little bird with an outsized voice, the Ruby-crowned Kinglet, Regulus calendula, is a bird of the Northern forests. Fearless defenders of their nests, males have been known to chase away Canada Jay mobs raiding for egg meals. The bird in this recording was putting on a continual arial display while I sat eating my lunch. Perched out on a fir limb around 20 feet up, it would sing and promptly flit out around 4-5 feet. After a few somersaults and maybe a hover it would return to the perch (or another nearby) and repeat. I say it did this while I ate my lunch... that just happens to be when I recorded it. It began its display during dawn while I slept nearby in a tent and continued with hardly a break through dusk.

I've been posting clean-processed recordings lately, with an eye towards celebrating the birds' voices. I chose to leave this one un-mastered, "raw" save for removing mic bumps and me coughing, just to show how quiet the location is. Adjust your volume until the Kinglet is at a comfortable listening level. That's what it was like.

Read more about Ruby-crowned Kinglets at All About Birds: www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Ruby-crowned_Kinglet

If you'd like to hear more or license bird sounds for your project, feel free to message me directly in SoundCloud or click on one of my too-many social media buttons. Happy Listening!

Image credit: "708 - RUBY-CROWNED KINGLET (2)" by Sloalan is marked with CC0 1.0

Ruby-crowned Kinglet

12min - 0415am, First Light
12-54 min - 0415-0457, DAWN
54min - 0457am, Sunrise

Large wildfires are once again uncontrollably threatening much of the intermountain west in North America. Just 5 miles/ 8 km from the oncoming edge of the Cub Creek fire here in Washington is one of my most favorite places to record  anywhere. Thirtymile Meadows is one of the very few places I know of in the continuous 48 United States that is neither rainforest nor remote island where I can set up my microphones, press record, and expect a soundscape free of human-generated noise for at least 4 hours to be the result. Sometimes it can be up to nearly a day.
This was a little more than a month ago, the morning of Summer Solstice. It’s merely an excerpt.

I don’t know if I’ll be able to record there again, at least not a soundscape such as this, filled with birdsong. It’s highly likely my next trip with be filled with the whistling winds that wind around burned snags, the creaking of swaying barren trunks, perhaps the snapping and falling of dead wood.

Stands up on soapbox:
These forests depend upon fire for their very survival, but the rejuvenating fire that feeds their growth is low-level, fuel-consuming, and under-story burning. It cracks open seeds for hardy conifers. It clears room for new seedlings. It brings down larger diseased trees, returning their nutrients to the soil.
The fires we see raging now are not those fires.
For decades we have managed these forests by preventing fire without clearing the accumulating fuels. In the effort to keep “timber stock” available for logging and to protect the encroaching human settlements, all fire is suppressed. Weakened and dried by the advancement of climate change, trees age without replacement while dense, dry growth builds up beneath.
A simple spark (a lightning strike, an untended campfire, the hot under-carriage of a vehicle, a cigarette butt) is all that is needed to start a conflagration that does not clear and rejuvenate, but destroys.
With both the understory and tree cover gone, the ground becomes loose and rocky. The Autumn rains, Winter snows, and Spring melts wash away the fertile soils that nurse future growth.
We lose forest, and it doesn’t grow back. Not all of it. The interiors are safe for now, and can slowly re-grow over the ensuing decades if left un-molested. The edges are gone, however, and each successive fire and monsoon season scales them back farther.
Thirtymile Meadows is at a unique interface of interior, edge, and wet meadow. The meadow will survive, as should the deep forest to its Northeast. The Southwest edge, though, will disappear if the Cub Creek Fire reaches it. Already scarred by human-caused fires nearly twenty years ago, the Southern edge is dry, fuel-filled, and loose.

I don’t have an answer. I don’t have a plan. I just want to make people aware.

I also want to share the beauty of soundscapes that are in danger of disappearing, whether from noise pollution or ecosystem loss.

2021 - 06 - 21 ThirtymileMeadows Across The Dawn

Constant heavy rain with small drops on broadleaf vegetation, mostly Maple

Rain, Heavy, Small Drops on Broadleaf

Constant heavy rain with small drops on on vegetation waterlogged with puddles

Rain, Heavy, Small Drops on Waterlogged Vegetation

Constant heavy rain with large drops under a Spruce canopy

Rain, Heavy, Large Drops on Spruce

Constant rain with large splatty drops under a vegetative canopy, some wind  through the higher canopy above

Rain, Large Splatty Drops

I am joining forces with George Vlad and Thomas Beverly to raise money for environmental causes this holiday season. The three of us have a deep love of nature and actively work to preserve the natural soundscapes through our field recording. We are each donating some of our recordings as a prize to encourage donations.

I am donating a custom selection of mastered bird, insect, mammal, and amphibian sounds and select soundscapes from the Pacific Northwest. These sounds are unavailable commercially, and are normally packaged in custom libraries and sound design projects.

43 bird species across 19 families, 4 species of crickets, Rocky's Elk, Douglas Pine Squirrel, Coyotes, Pacific Chorus Frogs, American Bullfrogs, and one lone unidentified insect have been carefully recorded, mastered, and edited to best represent the individual species and reflect the variety of life found in the Pacific Northwest. These valuable recordings are not immersive soundscapes, but single-species sounds, ready-to-go to be dropped into your project with minimal preparation.

All proceeds will go to benefit three different charities. My share will go to Conservation Northwest, https://www.conservationnw.org/ and organization with a mission to protect, connect and restore wildlands and wildlife from the Washington Coast to the British Columbia Rockies.

Contribute at Thomas' online shop here: https://thomasrexbeverly.com/collections/sound-libraries/products/giving-contest-2021

Bird Species in this library (and heard in this preview):
American Goldfinch
American Robin
Barred Owl
Black-capped Chickadee
Black-throated Gray Warbler
Brewer's Blackbird
Brewer's Sparrow
Brown Creeper
Brown Thrasher
Canyon Wren
Chipping Sparrow
Cliff Swallow
Common Loon
Common Nighthawk
Common Poorwill
Common Raven
Dark-eyed Junco
Golden-crowned Kinglet
Hermit Thrush
Hutton's Vireo
Marsh Wren
Mourning Dove
Olive-sided Flycatcher
Pacific Wren
Pacific-slope Flycatcher
Red-winged Blackbird
Rock Wren
Ruby-crowned Kinglet
Ruffed Grouse
Savannah Sparrow
Song Sparrow
Spotted Towhee
Steller's Jay
Swainson's Thrush
Tree Swallow
Varied Thrush
Western Meadowlark
Western Wood-pewee
White-crowned Sparrow
Willow Flycatcher
Wilson's Warbler
Yellow-breasted Chat
Yellow-headed Blackbird

2022 Giving Contest Preview - Northwest Voices

Colockum Pass, Naneum Reserve, Kittitas County, WA, rare tunderstorm booms on the eastern slope of Cascade Mountains, dry thunder, 2019-08-10

Recorded in the beautiful Pacific Northwest in Washington, WA, United States

THUN Rolling Mountain Rolling

Colockum GMU, Kittitas Country, WA, midnight rain in a dry raiparian creek, dry scrub land surrounds

Recorded in the Beautiful Pacific Northwest

Rain on Scrubland

Dawn chorus in a temperate deciduous forest, from quiet air broken by awakening American Robins through an active soundscape with Pygymy Owls, Ruffed Grouse, Flycatchers, and several Robins close far far, including close flutters,  Spring season, stereo downmix mastered from original quad Tree Ears recording

Recorded in the beautiful Pacific Northwest in Washington, United States

AMBForst Active Dawn Chorus Temperate Deciduous Forest

I was recording Gallinule when a Limpkin flew in across the marshy area of the swamp and began wailing and clacking loudly. While I couldn't see the bird, the call is unmistakable. Recording method was parabolic, lightly edited to remove bumps from my shaking hand. It's possible there are two b birds. Towards the end there seems to be some very brief overlap with another bird. Recording location was at the end of the Henderson Audubon Nature Trail in the Atchafalaya National Wildlife Refuge. I was pointing away from the highway and recording with a high-pass filter, so there in minimal vehicle noise pollution. Being winter, the hardwood Cypress were still bare, letting the wail echo beautifully across the shallow open water.

Limpkin are relatively rare and new visitors and possibly residents to Louisiana, locating themselves in to follow the introduced and invasive Apple Snail, their primary and almost exclusive food source. Apple Snails appear to have been introduced, possibly in boat ballast, from Florida into Louisiana waters in the mid 1990s. 10-12 years later the first Limpkin sightings in Southern Louisiana were reported. 

A garrulous, honky, squeaky, vocal bird, male Limpkins have long, looped trachea like Cranes, enabling them to create especially loud, grating, piercing wails and screeches that have an eerie dinosaur-like quality along with a variety of clacks, stutters, and squeaky whistles.

Photo credit: "Limpkin sitting, NPSphotos.jpg" by evergladesnps is marked with Public Domain Mark 1.0.

Limpkin, Aramus guarauna

A long soundscape across Dawn in the Queets River Valley rainforest of the Olympic National Park. Starting in Astronomical Twilight, a small herd of Roosevelt Elk walks in from a distance, though a small forest glade, an away towards the Queets River bed.

Early Autumn rainfall and dropping Maple Leaves are the dominant sounds to begin, their pak-pak-spaks are a reminder that time passes, even in the still quiet of a moss-covered forest.

Highway 101 in less than 12 miles away, and distant traffic is funneled up the Valley, showing the difficulty of escaping human-generated sound. This has been mitigated somewhat with light processing, but close listening and inspection will make remnants evident. There are no other edits or processes committed.

I love the crisp cold air of the rainforests in the fall. Sounds, natural and human generated, carry into the distant. Tucked into my sleeping bag, I lay back in my small tent, listening to the forest awaken. Where once there was just the soft distant wash of the river, the elk are joined by the local birds. Steller's Jays shriek their song with grating-yet-amusing "CHA-CHA-CHA-CHAs". A Northern Saw-whet toots in the forest canopy. Young Varied Thrush practice their songs, not quite reaching the beautiful and haunting signature fluting of their predecessors, instead emitting a silly buzzer-bell-like noise. Pacific Wren singing at the end of their season and the occasional Kingfisher make an appearance as well. Noe of these complete with the sheer vibrance of the elk.

Roosevelt Elk or Roosevelt's Wapiti or Rainforest Elk are the largest remaining elk species in North America and thrive in shadowy silences of the Pacific Northwest's temperate rainforests. Bull's bugles and roars echo through the trees, becoming one of the signature sounds of the Olympic Mountains. The cows mew and squeal in return, listening for one another to not wander far astray.

The small herd is a tight-nit family group, a with one, maybe two, dominant bulls, five or six cows in their harem, and a handful of young. The dominant bull leads the group on a daily hike, down from the upper valley to the river and back again. Their bugles urge the group, both signaling the direction to go and scolding those that dawdle. As they pass through the glade, their heavy footfall on the vegetative floor thump-thump-thumps their presence as much as the vocalizations and the continued crushing of vegetation as they push by.

I can't get enough of their energy. They pull back frequently. No matter how many times I encounter them, Elk never cease to awe me.

Click through the comments below for some highlights!

Queets River Valley Rainforest Dawn with Elk

ROOSEVELT ELK - Olympic National Park's "Rainforest Elk" are the largest surviving species of elk in North America, endemic to the Olympic Peninsula but found up and down the Pacific Northwest coastal regions -  bugling male in forest glade - recorded with parabolic - clean processed with source

PHOTO CREDIT: "Roosevelt Elk Bugling-Unknown" by Forest Service Pacific Northwest Region is marked with Public Domain Mark 1.0. To view the terms, visit https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/?ref=openverse.

Roosevelt Elk  06, clean processed and parabolic source

Roosevelt Elk  05, clean processed and parabolic source

Roosevelt Elk  03, clean processed and parabolic source

Roosevelt Elk  02, clean processed and parabolic source

Roosevelt Elk  01, clean processed and parabolic source

Roosevelt Elk 08, clean processed and parabolic source

Roosevelt Elk 07, clean processed and parabolic source

A short representative collection of elk (and a few birds) from a recent expedition. These are all excerpts from the same 3.5 hour recording on the morning of September 18, starting pre-dawn. It was rutting season in the Colockum Wildlife area, and just before the start of open hunting season, so the males were out, about, and vocal. These are raw tracks, down-mixed to stereo (from double-m/s), normalized to -23 LUFS and down-sampled to 48k with no other filtering.
Geophony: The Colockum is a high plateau on the eastern side of the Casade Mountain range between Wenatchee and Ellensburg, WA. With steep drainage-carved ravines, dry grass, rolling hills, and scarce water, it is a difficult, rough terrain. Abundant Ponderosa Pine, Spruce, and some Firs provide variably-dense stands for the elk's bugling to echo from. A mighty wind storm had blown through during the night, with some occasional gusting still noticeable in the trees.
Anthrophony: None in these recordings
Biphony: Elk, mostly bulls bugling, screaming, roaring, whistling, and chirping. Occasional high-pitched mews from the cows can be heard. Some morning birds are present also, including jays, ravens, chickadees, and a woodpecker. There may be a squirrel present.

Elk Bull Scream Call And Chirps

At 2.5 miles Ape Cave is the longest continuous lava tube in the contiguous United States, and the third longest in North America. Formed approximately 2000 years ago, it's difficult yet fun hike. In December 2017 I spent a night hiking and meditating through the cave with a good friend. There's nothing quite like the peace and quiet of a lonely cave to help you focus on your thoughts.

It had been particularly rainy and snowy the previous couple of weeks, so there was a lot of saturated groundwater dripping through.

Ape Cave 2017 01

Thirtymile Meadows is a wet, subalpine meadow high in the Okanogan National Forest. A natural shallow bowl, it collects meltwater from each winter and slowly drains away through innumerable soft tinkling streams. In such a wide open space it can be difficult to know where to point microphones. When I visited in the Summer of 2019 I was never certain where the next morning's dawn chorus would arrive from. Past migrant season there was no consistent resting place for the wildlife every night.

Filled with chipmunks, Hermit Thrushes, Olive-sided Flycatchers, Lincoln's Sparrows, White-crowned Sparrows, Woodpeckers, Ravens, Clark's Nutcrackers, American Robins, and more, the meadow is a feast for the eyes and ears of the quiet observer.

This meadow and the surrounding scarred forest are still recovering from the massive Thirtymile Wildfire that began from an unattended campfire almost 20 years ago. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thirtymile_Fire They stand as a testimony to the resilience of nature against all that we humans throw at it. Fragile ecosystems are stronger than we once believed, but our negligence does them no favors. 

This is the same meadow as our friend the coyote. In fact, this recording is from the very same overnight. https://soundcloud.com/soundeziner/sets/coyote-in-the-high-country

Beginning in twilight silence, we progress through the earliest voices of First Light at 32 minutes and Sunrise at 72 minutes. After a brief period of the dawn rush of air, we spend the last hour listening in on the comings-and-goings and daily lives of Thirtymile Meadows. Throughout it all, the soft occasional tinkling of water flows around and beneath.

Unfortunately, one of my microphones failed overnight, and I ended up with a lopsided recording. I've accounted for this somewhat in the the master, but it's an imperfect image that I'm hoping to replace this summer when I return.

This recording can also be enjoyed at Northwest Soundscapes, here:
http://soundeziner.com/2020/05/thirtymile-dawn/

Thirtymile Dawn

Just a few miles away and a little farther up the mountains from Thirtymile Meadows (https://soundcloud.com/soundeziner/20190714_thirtymiledawn) can be found Long Swamp, a very large, highly biodiverse wetland complex.
Like the wet meadows, swamps in this area form through the collection of meltwater of the preceding winter. Unlike the shallow bowls of the meadows, though, the swamps form in the shallow creased valleys between rising prominences. Sometimes the water drains away into a creek at the end of the of the valley, but they are just as likely to simply seep slowly into the topsoil to re-appear elsewhere as a natural spring. Long Swamp does both.

This morning Long Swamp was playing host to Lincoln's Sparrows, Wilson's Snipe, Wilson's Warblers, woodpeckers, Willow Flycatchers, Olive-Sided Flycatchers,Western Tanagers, White-crowned Sparrows, Hermit Thrushes, American Robins, Ravens, Cedar Waxwings, Warbling Vireos, Northern Flickers, a large mammal that wandered through around the 2h46m mark, and another around 4h47m.

I'd like to say that this was a true long, unbroken soundscape, but I did find the need to remove three aircraft that buzzed through over the course of five hours. Other than that, there was very little done to clean this recording. Bordering the Pasayten Wilderness to the West, Long Swamp is a nearly pristine environment.

Beginning around twenty minutes before first light in the last few minutes of Nautical Twilight, it's easy to see that some birds are early risers. Wilson's Snipe are are crepuscular, so we can expect to hear the swoop winnowing of their tails, but I was surprised to hear the high fluting of Hermit Thrushes and buzzy "zip-pew!" of Willow Flycatchers already filling the air. Barely nine minutes into the recording and a White-crowned Sparrow practices the first part of his song to our left. Fifteen minutes later and we hear the morning tuk-tuk laughter of an American Robin. By First Light at 0434 (22 minutes)we're able to hear the "Quick! Three beers!" of Olive-Sided Flycatchers and the distant trilling of Lincoln's Sparrows. Through this period chipmunks have been scattering about, already signaling their territory with rapid fire chitters.
Around 0459 (25 minutes) a Western Tanager begins to come into focus. Sounding like lazy Robins, they are easily confused. The easiest way to hear the difference is to learn the general cadence. Tanagers pause after every 5-10 "lines". Robins, however, sing in blocks of 4-6 "lines", but barely pause before plowing through.
With so much activity already occurring around us, the 0513 sunrise (1h01m) goes by barely noticed.
What I truly love about listening to a place like Long Swamp is the ebb and flow of life. Whether it's woodpeckers hunting too the fluted tunes of Hermit Thrushes at 3h54m or the chipmunk taking over just a minute later at 3h56m, the  frustrated "kyew" of a Northern Flicker at 4h37m or the fast zoom of a large insect or hummingbird at 4h25m, there's always activity, the literal humming and buzzing of life. It goes on all around us every day wherever we are. Tucked inside our dense, noisy urban and suburban homes it's easy to forget and to believe that humanity is life. Far from those urban centers, though, stripped of noisy cars and cellphones and H/VAC systems and airplanes are places like Long Swamp, where natural life continues unabated or stressed by the rigors of anthropogenic sounds.

Long Swamp also appears on my blog, here: http://soundeziner.com/2020/05/long-swamp/

Long Swamp Dawn

blog: http://soundeziner.com/2020/05/long-swamp-dusk-20190716/

I’ve fallen in love with the Okanogan mountains, the wet meadows, swampy bogs, forests, grassy ridge tops, and more. Most of the naturally quiet locations are difficult to reach from Seattle, but that’s fine by me. It just means more opportunities to record with without interruption.

On the night of 2019-07-17 I camped, once again, near Long Swamp. I’d spent the previous night and Dawn at the Long Swamp Campground (https://soundcloud.com/soundeziner/long-swamp-dawn), but this night I found a location further up the drainage with more open water.

There are plenty of residents, full-time and transitory, in Long Swamp. Song Sparrows, Lincoln’s Sparrows, Swainson’s Thrushes, American Robins, Mallard Ducks and more make their homes here. There was activity all around.

The air was still as I sat down to record; the temperature a chill 60ºF/ 15.5ºC, and the moon was expected to be full. By the start of this recording at 1944, I was long settled into my tent for a nice evening of listening.

I could hear distinct non-song vocalization from Swainson’s Thrushes. The crisp clear air, chill wetland water, and hardwood reflections off nearby trees made for the perfect medium. Listen to the one-note call of a nearby Swainson’s: at 12m35s (1957) It works through fitful song-starts to buzzes and churls as it warms up 13m08s (1958). By the time he’s opened up for his full song at 15m40s (1800), he’s been joined by distant rivals on all sides. Each is as clear as he is. Only their volume betrays their distance.

If you’re wondering “churl” is, check out the series at 18m08s (1803). Most birders call it “churr”, and the phonetics are really more of a “tchik-wOow”, but I really like the descriptive appeal of “churl” a lot more. Besides, it’s fun to say, “Those thrushes sure are churlish today, aren’t they?”

The local Thrushes wander off by 20m50s (2005), and we're left with a period of distant mingling song before our first Song Sparrow shows up around 24m16s (2009). Song Sparrows are fun to listen to for their spritely personalities the range of songs each bird goes through. Individual pulls from a variety of distinct phrases to develop its own repertoire. It can be easy to be fooled into believing you’re surrounded by multiple sparrows, when it’s really just one. Check it out:
1h01m12s (2046) —  over the next 50 seconds this one individual pulls out four slight variations of the same theme.
Again at 1h06m24s (2051)
And again at 1h11m50s (2057) — he does it again over two minutes.

Take a listen to this ten minute stretch from 0623 the following morning https://soundcloud.com/soundeziner/20190717-long-swamp-dawn#t=1:55:50 It’s not necessarily the same bird from evening, but this is clearly one individual going through at least five distinct variations and many subtle permutations in one long sitting. So. Much. Fun.

Sun set this evening at 2047 or 1h02m31s, signaling the start of Dusk. It’s a common misconception that Dusk is the period before sunset. Just as Dawn ends with the sun’s rise over the horizon, so does Dusk start when it dips below. Dusk ends with Last Light and Civil Twilight makes way to Nautical Twilight at the same time. This occurs when the sun is about 6 degrees below the horizon. On clear days there’s just enough light for most outdoor activities that don’t require reading. Tonight that Changeover is 2127 at 1h42m31s.

This evening comes to a quiet close with what has long been one of my favorite mystery sounds at 1h49m45s (2124) This noisy insect — one of the few we have here in Washington — is a frequent, loud voice throughout the inland forests of the Pacific Northwest. I have yet to find a reliable identification of it. It often goes unnoticed due to its high pitch. The bulk of its acoustic energy is between 12.6kHz and 14.5kHz, out of range for many adults, especially males over 45. If you have a name for it, please leave a comment below or message me.

Long Swamp, Dusk, 2019-07-16

This lively dawn chorus was recorded in a small pothole coulee in Eastern Washington, one of the numerous Seep Lakes of the Channeled Scablands.
This is the Columbia Plateau, a large basalt flow cut through by the Columbia River. During the last ice age, 10-20 thousand years ago, the ice dam blocking Glacial Lake Missoula collapsed, unleashing one of the largest known ancient mega-floods. This flood, and dozens of smaller floods swept through Washington to the Columbia River. It washed the topsoil off much of the plateau, ripping out chunks of basalt and eroding great channels we call coulees. The best known of these is the Grand Coulee, known both for its size and for the dam that filled it with water. Early white settlers in the area called this land "scablands" because nothing could grow on it.
In the 1900s the Columbia Basin Project, the largest water reclamation project in the US, saw the creation of a network of dams and reservoirs including the Grand Coulee. Responsible for the upheaval and forced relocation of thousands of indigenous peoples, eliminating their access to the migratory Salmon their lives relied upon, decimated fish stocks above the dams, and rendering numerous towns and settlements uninhabitable, the CBP worthy of a longer history lesson another day. The expansion of agriculture production has been proven beneficial, turning North Central Washington into one of the largest and most productive tree fruit producing areas on the planet.
One unintended consequence that is either beneficial or disastrous depending your outlook has been the hydrological seepage from the reservoirs into the many downstream coulees and potholes, resulting in the creation of hundreds of lakes of varying sizes. These brand new wetland ecosystems quickly became popular with migratory and resident wetland birds who now call them home. They are also regularly stocked and prove popular fishing destinations.
The pothole coulee this recording is from is one of those new wetlands.
One final history/ ecological history lesson: the American Bullfrog is indigenous to the eastern portion of North America. It's historical range just barely reached what is now the Oklahoma. During the Gold Rush period of the 1800s they were imported to the West to meet the "sophisticated tastes" of wealthy East Coasters. Frog farms were set up throughout California, Oregon, and Washington to meet demand. When demand died and the farms closed, farmers released their stock in wetlands, creating one of the most voracious invasive pests in the West. Read more about it here: https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2004/aug/15/bad-news-bullfrogs/
I have mixed feelings when I hear bullfrogs in the soundscape. They're an invasive, dangerous pest. But can we, WILL we be able to restrain them back to their original  range? It's doubtful. Just as Pigeons, European Starlings, Chukar, and Pheasants among other species have become an indelible part of our wild spaces, should bullfrogs just be accepted? I'm mixed. I love the sound of a bullfrog chorus. It's pretty spectacular. It's also a sign of a wetland zone. If I hear bullfrogs, I go looking.
So to the recording…
This is a true Dawn chorus. Tt captures the entire Dawn, from First Light, 4:33 AM, through Sunrise, 5:03 AM.
There are three dominant voices here: Coulee crickets (I'm not making this up: Anabrus longipes), Yellow-headed Blackbirds, which, if I had to pick, would be my single favorite bird, and the Bullfrogs. Listen to the crickets, thick and lush in the twilight, slowly drop off and become a sparser presence towards the end. In a few hours they'll stop singing during the period the sun is highest.
You'll also hear of Canyon Wrens, with their mournful drooping, Red-winged Blackbirds, Common Nighthawks, Tree Swallows, and a distant Rock Wren.
Click through the comments  and markers in the soundcloud track for callouts of some of the various voices.

At Northwest Soundscapes:
http://soundeziner.com/2020/06/coulee-dawn/

Coulee Dawn, 2020-06-20

While taking my college-aged child on a 2020 quarantine-fueled road trip of some of my favorite recording places, we were gifted by the world with this beautiful Dawn Chorus near Forde Lake.

From the 0419 am First light through Sunrise, I wanted to know what the dawn sounded like to a tree. Hanging a pair of small omni in "tree ears" fashion about 6 feet up in a young Ponderosa Pine, we discovered that Lazuli Bunting and Spotted Towhee were in extreme abundance in the immediately proximate area. In the distance you can hear a variety of other voices, including California Quail, Ring-necked Pheasant, Sparrows of several varieties, Thrushes, Warblers, and my new favorite singer, the Yellow-breasted Chat.

Sinlahekin Tree Ears, 2020-07-02

While taking my college-aged child on a 2020 quarantine-fueled road trip of some of my favorite recording places, we were gifted by the world with this beautiful Dawn Chorus at Forde Lake.

From the 0419 am First light through Sunrise we listen to the world wake up through the canopy of deciduous coverage near the slow-moving Sinlahekin Creek. Light rain briefly patters on Quaking Aspen and Maple above and big leaf ground foliage below, and a wind tousles the leafs with a papery-breath.

This location was a favorite of several local Yellow-breasted Chat, but even they can't drown out the Wilson's Snipe, California Quail, and Veery.

Sinlahekin Dawn Chorus, 2020-07-01

While taking my college-aged child on a 2020 quarantine-fueled road trip of some of my favorite recording places, we were gifted by the world with this beautiful and dense Dawn Chorus at Long Swamp.

Starting in Astronomical Twilight at 0353 am, 23 minutes before First Light, and running through 40 minutes after Sunrise, this track features a wetland shrub area in Long Swamp and faint water burbles from Long Swamp Creek, while distant wash from drainage near campground provides a stable bed. The stage is set for a dense chorus that really get going around 10 minutes in. Included in the roster of voices and sounds are Olive-sided Flycatcher, Willow Flycatcher, Western Wood Pewee, Wilson's Warbler, Orange-crowned Warbler, Yellow Warbler, American Robin, Hermit Thrush, Swainson's Thrush, Lincoln's Sparrow, Song Sparrow, Savannah Sparrow, Ruby-crowned Kinglet, Warbling Vireo, Wilson's Snipe

Long Swamp Dawn Chorus, 2020-06-30

In the quiet of the Hoh Rainforest of Olympic National Park, heavy rain falls on Vine Maples and dense underbrush of ferns, grasses, and other large-leaf ground cover. On this day, 2020-09-23, the park saw nearly its entire expected monthly precipitation (6.37 in/ 162 mm) in one 24 hour hard rainfall (5.93 in/ 151 mm), swelling the Hoh River into a raging monster that swept away trees along the shore. This recording is from an in-land quiet area about four miles into the Hoh River Trail.

Sometimes I hear people talking about "the sound of rain in a forest" as being just a single, monolithic sound that covers the entire forest, or even all forests. To these people I suggest to Listen More. Close your eyes and take it in. No recording can do justice to feeling of being there, the smell of cedar in the air and soil beneath your feet, the feeling of water dripping down your faces and fogging your glasses, the damp chill as your clothes soak in the moisture. No recording carries with it the green all around you, the quiet elk browsing in the forest to your side, the slow falling leaves knocked from branches by hard raindrops. But still, still a recording can convey some of the subtleties of the immediate surroundings, some of the details that go into making one tree sing like another does not.

Vine Maples are a common sight throughout the coastal forests of the Pacific Northwest. A shrubby tree that occasionally grows to significant size when left un-disturbed, it's often laden with thick matts of moss that absorb just as much rain as they do sound. The broad leaves of the maple catch raindrops with a loud splat, splashing off to moisten everything nearby. The drops that make it through the canopy hit ferns and other broadleaf understory plants, creating a "floor" of sound that acts as a counterpoint to the diffuse conifer spray up above. In calmer, less intense rainfall you can almost hear individual drops as they drip-drip-drip down from the sky and through the blankets of moss that continue to "rain" long after actual water has stopped falling from the sky.

Heavy Rain on Vine Maples and Dense Underbrush

At 2.5 miles Ape Cave is the longest continuous lava tube in the contiguous United States, and the third longest in North America. Formed approximately 2000 years ago, it's difficult yet fun hike. From time to time I like to venture in and record all night (to avoid the disturbance of other hikers during the day).

In November 2019 I returned for another night of hiking and recording. This time I made sure to avoid the splats and smacks on backpacks from the previous trip. It didn't hurt, too, that I had much longer cables and could rest farther down the tunnel and around a bend than I could previously.

Ape Cave 2019 04

Ape Cave 2019 03

Ape Cave 2019 02

Ape Cave 2019 01

I'm contributing some sounds to an upcoming crowdsourced Water & Ice sound effects library. For my contribution, I pulled recordings from a coincidentally-timed recording trip. I recently spent a few very (very) cold nights camped next to a few frozen lakes listening to (and recording) their heaving and sighing and cracking and sloshing. This is a preview of what I heard and will be in the library.

This is a short compilation of some really cool sounds emanating from the lakes. I must emphasize that there is *no* processing here (other than simple editing). Th method here was just set the mics up and let the ice sing (and then edit the takes together). This compilation represents 25 takes that will be included in the crowdsourced library.

There is plenty more where this came from. Fell free to message me if you're interested in hearing more.

Water And Ice Preview

A lone Grey Wolf howls in the late morning, losing itself to the natural reverb of a glacial valley

Grey Wolves were all but extirpated from Washington early in the last century. They've been on a slow but steady recovery now for decades. While still a species of high concern in the Northwest, occasions of hearing their mournful cries are thankfully becoming more and more common.

This is not without controversy, unfortunately, as ranchers fear their livelihoods will be destroyed and hunters express concern over the competition for game animals. My general feeling is this is good, however. The mass numbers of humanity living in former wolf territory and the introduction of highly destructive and invasive farm and game animals such as cattle, pigs, chickens, bullfrogs, pheasant, etc, have had long-lasting, oft-permanent destructive consequences on our ecological systems. That wolves are able to reclaim some territory on their own despite the historical effort to eliminate them is a testimony to their tenacity as a species.

The challenges are great, though, and humanity does not make it easy for other apex predators to survive in a world we claim as our own to despoil at will. Wolves need help all around North America. To help recovery efforts and the benefits they can provide, consider supporting a conservation effort such as The International Wolf Center https://wolf.org or a sanctuary and rehabilitation center such as Wolf Haven International https://wolfhaven.org. For more information on their spread and recovery in Washington, read this informational pamphlet from the Washington Department of Fish & Wildlife https://bit.ly/2NvfgXW

Lone Wolf Howls

Sound Designer + Field & Natural Sound Recordist
Living in Seattle, recording the Pacific Northwest, streaming to the world.
To license sounds or for all other inquiries: info@soundeziner.com

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