Filling the quiet season with sound
One of winter’s challenges for those of us in the northern latitudes is the lack of nature sounds. From this point to mid-January in Minnesota, the backyard is quiet except for alarm calls made by birds and squirrels when visiting the feeders. In the first month of the new year, the early songs of spring will include the chickadee’s “fee-bee” notes, the cardinal’s “what cheer, cheer, cheer” song and woodpeckers drumming.
Until then if you need a little pick-me-up and cheer for what is coming around again when the daylight gets longer, I would suggest the excellent nature sound recordings by Lang Elliot. Here is his introduction on his website, Music of Nature, which has extensive recordings in both sound and video formats to check out:
My name is Lang Elliott and I am a professional nature recording artist devoted to gathering spacious 3D-binaural soundscapes of exceptional quality. Please join me on my adventures as I explore wild areas across North America.
Who Am I?
This is not an easy question to answer. I might just say “I am a child of nature” and let it go at that. Or I might identify myself as a “naturalist” or a “nature recordist” or a “nature cinematographer” or a “nature photographer” or a “nature book author” or a “nature poet.” And there would be some truth to each of these designations. I may also explain that my appreciation of nature has strong spiritual and mystical roots, but what exactly does that mean? So maybe I should just let it go at that, only adding that I believe it’s my job in this life to celebrate the wonder of beauty of nature, even the miracle of existence itself.
His website is a treasure trove of superbly produced recordings of birds, amphibians, insects and mammals - all available for free and appeal to all ages. In addition to pure enjoyment, these can serve as a valuable educational tool for helping identify sounds and to learn more about these creatures.
If you enjoy listening to podcasts on your phone, here is the link to his Music of Nature. Headphones or earbuds are highly recommended to capture the 3D listening effect. Some of the episodes are pure sounds in the moment and in other episodes, Elliot provides a pleasing voiceover that identifies what you are hearing. For example here are two spring backyard bird walk narrated by Lang:
And another for those of you that enjoy Arizona nature:
There are 21 episodes to date on his podcast to break up the winter’s silence and brush up on one’s ID skills for spring!