When water returns to a wetland, you expect it to bring the sounds of life — insects, frogs and birds in full song, the trickle of water, wind in the treetops and shuffling through the reeds. You hear these things as soon as you step into the landscape. And so it was on my recent return to “Burrima”.
The woodland birds, dominated by the reed warblers, create a wall of sound that surrounds you on entering the shady depths of the River Red Gums. Water flows gently through channels, pooling into lagoons, where swamp hens and ducks screech in protest at being disturbed. Focussed on what was happening at my feet, I almost missed a black swan overhead attempting to fly into a stiff headwind before sweeping around to take the easier route. Back at camp, shrill kingfishers pierced the hot afternoon air. In the cool of the evening, when the frogs took centre stage, a bittern boomed somewhere in the distance. It was the first time I’d heard one in the field.
It was a stark contrast to the silence I experienced in February when camping overnight in one of the channels, lying in my swag staring at the starry night sky through the mesh of my fly/mosquito veil, ears straining to hear something, anything. An unnerving silence in the stillness of the night, the leaves of the River Red Gums lay dry, burnt and brittle on the ground, scattered amongst the carcases of dead kangaroos, and the reeds were just starting to reshoot from the base of charred stalks — a small sign of resilience following years of drought and a lightning fire in October 2019.
My mid-September trip was organised at short notice after weeks of watching weather apps — a 24-hour window to grab what I could before forecast weekend rain arrived, enough to make access to the site impossible for some time. This was my fifth trip to “Burrima” for the year, each visit noting changes since the baseline recordings made in February.
On each trip, I draw up a recording log of what I want to capture. I’ve experimented with a range of recording equipment that to date has included time-lapse cameras, a field trap camera, an underwater action camera, a drone flown at low level, hydrophones, contact microphones, shotgun mics, a 360-sound recorder and an acoustic field recorder. The visuals are certainly interesting, particularly when layered and abstracted. I envisage the end works to have both visual and sonic elements, however, the audio is what really highlight the changes in the wetland over the past seven months.
Two of the most exciting sounds I’ve recorded to date came from this trip. In the middle of the hot (30 deg C), spring afternoon of my arrival, I captured the sound of bright green mats of waterwort sitting on the bottom of channels and lagoons, fizzing and popping under the water as they released oxygen, part of the photosynthesis process. In the cool of the following morning, I re-visited the giant, ancient coolabah trees on the floodplain and captured the sound of water passing through the cells of a thick, arched branch growing from the base of one of the trees, along with deep rumbling noises of the tree moving and vibrating in the wind.
These sounds are inaudible without the assistance of technology. What made it possible to capture them were my new Zoom F6 field recorder with 32-bit float recording options allowing for a distortion-free dynamic range, combined with upgraded contact mics (the c-series made by Jez riley French) that have a wide frequency response. I also use JrF hydrophones, but the results from pairing them with the F6 have been much better than the Zoom H6 which has been my field recording workhorse until now.
I see incredible value in visiting the same location repeatedly over time, each trip informing the next. My intention with Pulse of the Wetland was to work across other locations around the Macquarie Marshes, and while I’ve sampled these areas throughout the year and they have been part of my wider research process, the time I’ve been able to spend doing durational recordings on the one site has created an understanding and intimacy that would not have otherwise been achieved. It’s something I’m hoping will come through in the finished works.
