Sugarloaf Rock

Sugarloaf Rock is situated in the Leeuwin Naturaliste National Park near Margaret River in Western Australia. Since I was a teenager I have enjoyed surfing and hiking near the rock. It is a very rugged part of Western Australia's coastline, the tides and swell can be very unpredicatable. In the past fishermen and surfers have been lost to the Indian Ocean in this area.

This recording was taken on Easter Sunday. With a strong onshore wind and large swell, I sheltered behind rocks and shrubs close to the shoreline. In the recording you can hear the wind and the swell but also the rocks moving. After listening back to the recording was perplexed by the rock sounds and later realised that they probably originated from my feet as I braced against the wind on the uneven shoreline.


Sugar loaf blogmix by Matt Rösner

Early Winter Stream

This recording was taken in May just after the first winter rains started. Its of a small stream that runs from the top of the Darling Scarp onto the coastal plain near my house in Western Australia.

Water was trickling over the parched rocks and in and around the dried out reeds after a summer and autumn without rain.

- Matt

Farm stream blogmix by Matt Rösner

Woodland behind the dunes

Recorded early one morning in April 2011. The location was a small woodland directly behind coastal sandunes near Byron Bay on the NSW farhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif north coast. The location is on the edge of the Brunswick Heads Nature Reserve, an area that forms a vital stepping stone for migrating birds. Species from north and south-east Australia overlap in the area, providing unusually diverse plant and animal communities. These types of habitats are some of my favourite to record in, there are usually lots of birds about and the dynamics of the soundscape change from day to day with the amount of swell and wave action on the beach. Sometimes the rumble of the waves is a little too much though.
Learn more about Brunswick Heads Nature Reserve here.

Behind the sand dunes by seaworthy