A similar project is radio aporee, a huge corpus of field recordings from all over the world (see the "maps" section for searching etc): https://aporee.org/
I started making a lot of field recordings on my last few expeditions into remote rainforest. This is the soundscape at dawn from a camp in Maliau Basin, Borneo, featuring gibbons, hornbills, elephants, songbirds, insects... https://vocaroo.com/1ofQSNJYXLh2
I've recently upgraded my recording device, and will make a large library available in higher quality one day.
What's so fascinating about projects like Aporee is the peculiar feeling one gets while listening to several of those field recordings in a row: here is a captured moment of reality that we will never get back. It's a moment of reality, a soundscape, that will never ever repeat in its 100% trueness or authencity. This gives an odd angle to think about the passing of time. [end of esotheric rant, hm]
No recordings yet in my area, was looking how to contribute: audio seems licensed under creative commons so it's not locked in (nice), submission process sounds straightforward (nice), checking out the submission flow: that requires signing in with a google account... but there is also an email address mentioned, perhaps that's an alternative path. Bit sad that the default flow just assumes you're happy with one of the biggest ad tech companies' privacy policy, especially when this project seems to have taken the effort to make a clear and succinct privacy policy of their own.
I spent one evening laying on the Yosemite valley floor, from dusk until well past the moon and stars had made their appearances. The entire time I was there, frogs were holding a concert. And sound echoes between the rocks.
I think timing might be an interesting factor to introduce, e.g. all forests at sunset.
I clicked around in the southern appalachians on this map, and there are a few nighttime recordings from there. The night ones are very loud with frogs and insects, in contrast with the daytime ones that are mostly birds.
Maybe as they get more data that'll be something you can filter on.
Something I realized hiking the stairway to heaven is how much road traffic in a valley can be amplified by surrounding mountains.
Can't be good for nature.
Something I've thought about recently is how loud forests should be. Daniel Mason names this loss explicitly in the wonderful North Woods, namely that "[b]etween 1970 and 2019 alone, nearly a third of all birds had disappeared from North America. Once, the forest would have been deafening." Likewise, Cat Bohannon's stellar Eve notes that "[w]hen you first visit a tropical rain forest, the dominant emotion is usually surprise—not over the beauty of the place, nor over how hot it is. The biggest shock is that it's bloody loud."
Have a look at "Burden of dreams", a doc about Werner Herzog moving a boat over a mountain (with a team, to film "Fitzcaraldo") in the amazon. "The birds don't sing, they screech in pain"
Fun fact, when I went to a trip through Europe (I'm from Buenos Aires) I arrived at 6AM on a sunday. And the first thing I noticed is how different the bird sounds are.
And if any geeks want to get involved with adding to the recordings but don’t want to invest much, I have a raspberry pi recorder project that can help. It even runs on a pi zero.
As an added bonus, if what you are recording can be heard on three recorders or more you can sound localize with them. Find out where that wood pecker is pecking from for example.
Lastly. You can synchronise the time on all your computers with it as it doubles as a time server with sub-microsecond time accuracy.
(PS. Love the comments about New Zealand here, I’m from New Zealand :-) )
I'm from Western Europe but I lived a year and a half in New Zealand almost a decade ago, I miss the wilderness and the sound of the birds from this area of the world. This project is neat!
(hi Vincent.) I've lived in New Zealand for the last 12 years, and still also appreciate the the sounds of the birds every day. It never gets old, for me. The tui birds, bellbirds, saddlebacks, and grey warblers in particular.
When I lived in England for a year, I'd play recordings of New Zealand forests in the background because I was so homesick for these bird sounds.
The blackbirds and the tawny owls that live around my house remind me bit of the tui and the ruru sometime. But the tui birds are really unique and amazing! It's almost magical :) I remember listening to them one last time before hoping into the bus to the airport because I knew I would miss them a lot.
I also spent half a year on Steward Island during my first winter where there's a lot of kiwi birds and I still catch myself waiting for their calls in the forest next to my home in Europe at night haha!
I love this. Sometimes we humans are so batshit crazy trying to build that next-big-mega-thing... and here we have an easy-to-use map of forest sounds, and it just works. Kudos!
