Greetings Naturerecordists,
To give you the chance to delete now, this long posting comprises rather
anecdotal thoughts stimulated by Wild Soundscapes - the book and CD.
In this antipodean outpost the book only reached me in the last week,
enabling me to share the joy in it that you good folk in the U S of A
reported on some time ago. A quick skim through the book and a single
hearing of the disc and I just had to tell Bernie how much pleasure they
have already given me. Bernie kindly agreed to my posting my thoughts on
<naturerecordists>, so here goes.
Having learnt of Bernie's long experience of both field recording and
producing commercial recordings, I rather expected perfection in the quality
of the CD; and perfection it is. The choice of material, the sounds
themselves, the clear and interesting commentary, and of course the smooth
continuity of the whole - plus an inspired ending.
I had ideas once, of putting together a short documentary about Lord Howe
Island for the British Wildlife Sound Recording Society. LHI is perhaps the
most beautiful small island in the world, and being isolated by some 500
miles or so of Pacific Ocean in all directions, it has a limited bird fauna
- something I could cover in my brief visits. Of course being an island, it
was fairly obvious that the documentary should start with sea sounds. And
there my project came to a sudden halt before it started. I simply couldn't
make a good-sounding recording. So how delightful it was to put on the Wild
Soundscapes CD, and not only find that recording the sea is indeed
difficult, but to get advice on how to do it. Maybe next trip to LHI, I'll
try again.
That Jaguar. I agree with Roger Payne in the Foreword, it sure does make
the hairs on your neck stand up! But Bernie, my Systemtic Dictionary of
Mammals of the World, says that Jaguars grow up to 300 lb. and length up to
7 feet including 2 ft tail; and WILL CLIMB TREES IN PURSUIT OF PREY. So
what the heck were you doing wandering around (or sitting still) in the
dark, with one of those critters following you!
Alas my elderly hearing is deteriorating and I'm no longer competent to make
critical assessments of recordings. So with the binaural head recordings,
I think the more expensive mic set-up sounds better, though not strikingly
so, and certainly not 25 times better. One peculiarity, which may be a
result of my hearing loss, is that the sounds in both (listening with
headphones) seem to be above and behind me, except that with the more
expensive, there's a frog that seems to be slightly in front and to one
side. I reversed the headphones, but as expected that merely reversed the
sides - the sound still seemed to be behind me.
I went on to acquaint Bernie with some good news about changed circumstances
since he recorded at Port Douglas in north Queensland. On the CD Bernie
mentioned that the north Queensland rainforest is disappearing at a fast
rate. It certainly was. Two major threats were logging and a developer
named George Quaid. Both have stopped, I'm pleased to say. I'm not sure
whether public opinion clipped Quaid's wings or whether he had simply
achieved what he wanted (= made an obscene profit) and got out. To some
extent his influence will live on because he was able to get freehold title
to a lot of rainforest, which he subdivided and sold. The survival of any
rainforest on those subdivisions will now depend on the interest of the
owners and the regulatory powers of local government.
But the bulk of the North Queensland rainforests is now as secure as we can
reasonably expect, being listed as World Heritage. It was accepted by the
World Body on all four grounds for listing as natural heritage:
(i) it contains outstanding examples of eight major stages of the
Earth's evolutionary history;
(ii) it has high species richness and endemism (43 plant genera with
500 species, and 54 species of vertebrates restricted to the area), plus
ongoing biological evolution within populations isolated by altitudinal
barriers; [I wonder what global warming may do to that?]
(iii) exceptional natural beauty and one of the most significant
regional ecosystems in the world;
(iv) habitat for rare and threatened species: 500 plant species are
rare or threatened.
The "Wet Tropics World Heritage Area" is about 900,000 hectares in extent,
and is mostly rainforest. (It takes in most of the remaining rainforest
between Cooktown and Townsville.)
Of the 516 plant genera in the Area, 340 are each represented by just a
single surviving species.
Considering the Heritage Area in an Australian context, it contains 23% of
the continent's plant genera, 30% of marsupial species, 60% of bats, 30% of
frogs, 23% of reptiles, 62% of butterflies, and about 25% of the birds.
This eminently satisfactory situation is very largely the work of one
person, Dr Aila Keto, of Finnish ancestry. Her husband, Dr Keith Scott, has
worked solidly with her, and numerous people have assisted, mainly through
the Australian Rainforest Conservation Society that Dr Keto got going and
has presided over since its' inception. But it would not have happened but
for Dr Keto's inspiration, dedication, and outstanding ability in
negotiation and persuasion. She is a biochemist by training, so whence came
her nature conservation ethic?
She credits a visit from Peter Raven, Director of the Missouri Botanic
Gardens, as the turning point for her, personally. Dr Raven came to
Australia for the XIII International Botanical Congress and lectured on the
break-up of Gondwana, the evolutionary diversification and dispersal of the
flowering plants, and the role of the human species in terminating one of
the most spectacular eras in the evolution of life on Earth. Dr Keto left
his lecture inspired to protect those rainforests.
[How I wish she had been around and active in the '60s. The Queensland
Government granted a lease over a magnificent area of lowland rainforest,
which was cleared, burnt and pasture developed - King Ranch to raise beef
cattle. Forestry didn't even have time to log it of all of the beautiful
cabinet timber. And the ranch hasn't been a success.]
Dr Keto's first major success came when she was able to persuade the
Queensland Government to stop logging rainforest on State Forest reserves.
The World Heritage Listing took a bit longer to achieve.
'Bing' Lucas, a New Zealander, sadly now deceased, was a good friend of
mine. Somewhere in the '60s he attended the annual Short Course on National
Parks jointly run by the US of A, Canada and Mexico. He became Director of
N. Parks in NZ, and later the NZ Director-General of Lands and Survey.
After retirement he was for a while Chair of the IUCN Commission on N Parks
and Equivalent Reserves. And he was a member of the IUCN team that assessed
the NQ Wet Tropics Heritage proposal.
Bing said that Dr Keto accompanied them on the inspection, and at one time
the team was to stay overnight in a small community largely comprised of
loggers and others associated with the sawmilling industry who of course
were violently opposed to Heritage listing. It was suggested to Dr Keto
that it would be prudent for her not to attend, that she could expect
hatred, and that even physical violence couldn't be ruled out. According to
Bing, Dr Keto insisted on going and said she was willing to talk to anyone,
anywhere, at any time about the Heritage proposal, no matter what their
personal views or interests.
Bing told me that Dr Keto finished up late that night playing one of the
loggers pool for the rainforests. She won - despite not having played pool
before. ("But I think the logger had consumed rather a lot of alcohol by
that time, " Bing said.)
I listened with increasing admiration to the clarity of the recordings, and
I'd actually been wondering whether there are no blowflies in America, or
whether Bernie had filtered them out (which I thought unlikely) when I got
to the Port Douglas track. And unmistakably, there was a 'good' old
Australian blowfly buzzing past the mic. So I reckon I'm right in thinking
Bernie wouldn't filter out such a natural, if intrusive, sound. But I still
don't know if you have blowflies over there.
I never imagined that ants could 'sing'. How fascinating. Australian
Bull-dog Ants, species of Myrmecia, grow up to one and a half inches in
length. I am tempted to go looking for a colony to try Bernie's Lavaliere
mic technique. But perhaps not: to quote The Australian Encyclopaedia, they
are "all furnished with a large and powerful sting which is used without
provocation. When a nest is disturbed, or even approached, these large ants
will attack immediately and frequently will follow an intruder for many feet
from the nest".
Perhaps our meat ants would be a better choice: they don't sting. But they
do have a powerful bite, and (the Encyclopaedia again): "In the huge nest of
the meat or gravel ant (Iridomyrmex detectus), various interesting instances
of myrmecophilism occur, but the ants are so numerous and pugnacious that
study is difficult". Anne (my wife) and I visited Vicki Powys in Capertee
Valley (a long way from here) and I think I remember seeing a large meat
ants' nest near the track to the creek on her property. Perhaps Vicki will
rise to the challenge.
Bulldog Ants, and the related Jumper Ants (smaller but with just as vicious
a sting), are common in the Australian bush. Some 50 years ago I trained as
a forester (because the Queensland Forestry Department then administered
national parks) and in university vacation we students had to work on the
State Forests. I was with three other students on one such work-experience
exercise and they were frequently stung by jumper and bulldog ants; I never
got a single sting. I could sit down in the bush to eat my lunch and
foraging ants sometimes walked over me, but not one attempted to sting.
This mildly intrigued me at the time, but it wasn't until decades later that
I hit upon the probable explanation. After the first sting my colleagues
affected to have a hate of the ants. If they saw a nest, they'd stomp on it
quickly a couple of times to annoy the ants and then race off before any ant
got on to them. And what I now reckon was happening, was that as soon as
the ants were alarmed they emitted a pheromone that meant "Attack! Attack!"
And this substance would have got on their boots and socks. Then if they
encountered a lone ant out foraging, it would feel that it had to attack.
Have you listened to any of your cricket recordings played at slow speed? I
have one cricket recording made with a Uher, and happened to play it at
quarter-speed. A most beautiful ethereal sound.
What a lovely way to end the book and the disc, with that lone cricket.
Thank you Bernie.
I greatly look forward to a more leisurely read and listen.
Syd Curtis in Brisbane, Australia.
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