Wind Is the Original Radio

By earth.fmScience Health & Fitness Mental Health Kids & Family Education for Kids Nature

Wind Is the Original Radio episodes

October 06, 2023 Calm Jungle Morning in the Rainforest
Around four in the morning the insect chorus and water dripping sounds start to slowly morph into something more lively. Distant howler monkeys can be heard, while a flock of macaws is making a racket nearby. Screaming piha calls remind me I’m in the Amazon, while Motmots utter their low frequency bubbling call. Later on, toucans and toucanets join in along with a myriad other species.
Recorded in Pery by in the Reserva Territorial Madre de Dios, by George Vlad
1 hr
September 29, 2023 Pacific Ocean Waves
Experience the raw power of the Pacific Ocean as powerful waves crash upon a secluded sandy beach. The coastline is located in the Colombian region of Choco where there are no roads and the whole coastline is separated by impenetrable jungle hills from the rest of the mainland.
Recording by Jan Brelih in Choco, Colombia
1 hr
September 22, 2023 Ankasa Rainforest Dawn Chorus
It’s 5 a.m. at the Ankasa Rainforest. I woke up at around 4:30 a.m. and made my way through the thick darkness to capture the jungle ambience at dawn. Using the torchlight from my phone, I could hardly see anything but the beautiful symphony from the forest urged me to walk on untill I got to the desired spot where I set up my microphones. Enjoy this hour-long soundscape of nature at dawn.
This recording was done by Isaac Amoasi Arkohm, in Ghana, a current grantee of our field recording program.
1 hr
September 15, 2023 Life of Birds in a Calm Evening Spring
A relaxing evening song of birds in the a forested hill area near a big lake.
The most common birds on this recording are:
Common cuckoo (Cuculus canorus), Common chaffinch (Fringilla coelebs), Common blackbird (Turdus merula) , Song thrush (Turdus philomelos), European robin (Erithacus rubecula), Common wood pigeon (Columba palumbus), European green woodpecker (Picus viridis) and the Nightjar (Caprimulgidae) at the end of the recording as the night falls.
Other sounds captured: insects, walking of the deer or roe deer nearby and a faraway gentle stream.
Recorded in Croatia, by Ivo Vicic
1 hr 13 min
September 08, 2023 Sunset at the Shore of a Lake
It’s sunset time on the shore of the lake and the last birds of the day fly over the still water.
From the treetops I can hear the movement of leaves and branches. There are some distant sounds that I cannot decipher where they come from or how they are produced.
A few meters away, a white horse shines and takes a deep breath in the darkness.
It’s getting dark. The crescent moon rises and illuminates the ground, the water and the plants with a silvery and mysterious light.
The inhabitants of the night begin to be heard: toads, crickets, owls, bats, urutaus and bacuraus. Some capybaras dive into the water.
Recorded by Verónica Cerrotta in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
1 hr 11 min
September 01, 2023 The Sounds of Mayan Ruins
Soundscapes cannot be preserved across centuries like buildings, writings or fossils. In the jungles of the Yucatan there are countless archaeological sites where you can see what the Mayan civilisation lived like. You can admire their intricate architectural design and wonder at the advanced glyph script they developed.
Can you hope to experience the same soundscapes as they did? You probably can. The first step would be to remove all the sounds that Mayans did not experience in their day-to-day lives. Motorised road traffic, scooters, drones, aircraft – these are elements that probably did not pollute the soundscapes in Mayan times.
On my expedition to Mexico I visited a few remote Mayan sites where most tourists didn’t venture. These sites are far away from busy roads, and only reachable on foot after long drives through the jungle. Once there, I set up a few recording rigs and left them out for several days at a time. I had a very knowledgeable local guide who helped me immensely.
Is that it? Yes, more or less. The soundscape might not be exactly the same as 500 or 2000 years ago, but it won’t be drastically different either. Some species might have moved in or become locally extinct. There are differences related to day/night cycles, seasons, global warming and cooling cycles, local weather and a myriad other events that can affect what a place sounds like. Having said that, most of the wildlife you can hear in this recording will probably have been here in Mayan times.
The acoustics of their cities are quite important to consider as well. The big plazas and stepped masonry structures with hard edges have lots of reflective surfaces. The soundscapes of their cities would be a beautiful mix of wild jungle soundscape with man-made acoustics and reflections. Pay attention and see if you can hear these reflections in this recording.
Recorded by George Vlad in the Yucatán Peninsula, Mexico
1 hr 7 min
August 25, 2023 Winter Morning in the Atlantic Forest
It is an early August morning. There is some wind and the sky is cloudy. At this time of the
year, the Mulungú blooms: there are several of them, full of red flowers. Now it also
blooms the yellow Ipe and the Congea tomentosa, that brings a lot of lilac flowers. There are
Embaúbas and a very big Ficus, Avocados, Boldo and Jabuticaba trees. Birds fly from one
tree to another, moving their leaves and branches. The ground is full of dry leaves.
Recording by Verónica Cerrotta In São José do Vale do Rio Preto, Río de Janeiro
59 min
August 18, 2023 Dawn on an American Prairie
An inescapable sensation of floating fills my consciousness. A state of lucidity. Not entirely awake but not asleep. Conscious of surrounding ripples, the warm meadowlark song drifts in the air. I feel translucent. Light. Time passes and there is no distance between it. Opening my eyes returns awareness to the small tent I’m laying in. Narrowing myself back to a singular perception. Birdsong here carries you away. Do these small melodic Aves feel this expansion they provoke? Awake and listening to spring birds, a meadowlark, a dove, the northern Montana prairie evokes timeless wonder. To exist for years, decades, generations, in calm natural spring-like peace, for just a moment.
Drive across the country. Long straight roads. Steep winding roads. Exhausted but excited to be here. A distant croak from a raven interrupts my thoughts and I return to the moment. Here in this prairie to listen to the dawn. Spring morning air is cool in May. I breathe in deeply and crawl out of the warm sleeping bag. Bright, flat, and yellow-green the prairie is fully awake. I can’t tell you why, but it feels nostalgic looking out across the land here. Like I’ve returned home from a long trip and everything is exactly as I left it. I think we need these moments of waking up from social existence to be alone, completely alone in a natural place. In a way this is the least alone we can be. In deep nature we are truly what we are. Ourselves with no external observation or expectation to be one way or another. Just being. Just observing.
“We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.”
-T. S. Eliot
Field Recording by Nick McMahan in Montana, USA
1 hr
August 11, 2023 Okefenokee Swamp
The Okefenokee is one of the largest, intact swamps in the entire world. There’s only one road into the swamp and it terminates at Stephen C. Foster State Park, a Gold-tier International Dark Sky Park.
Recorded by Jared Blake in the Stephen C Foster State Park, USA
1 hr
August 04, 2023 Alpine Thunderstorm
!This recording has very high dynamics and so we advise extra care on your listening volume, especially if you are wearing headphones!
The area above Kamniška Bistrica, surrounded by mountains, was hit by a series of extremely powerful thunderstorms. Some of these storms triggered avalanches and flash floods. The recorded storm passed over the area during the night and you can hear the sounds of swollen torrential streams. Later, near the recording location, a flash flood was also triggered. The thunder of the storm echoes beautifully among the rocky walls of the surrounding mountains. What begins as a distant and quiet thunder develops nearer and powerful.
Recorded in Slovenia by Gregor Vida
1 hr