Singing Floodlights

This recording was made with contact mics on floodlight towers at Campbell Park, Russell Lea, NSW, Australia. The towers are relatively narrow and at over 30m high with their large banks of floodlights tend to sway a little once the wind picks up. These recordings were made during a period of particularly strong winds, a common occurance in Sydney during September/October each year. The sounds in these recordings are primarily made from the movement of internal wires/cables as the huge structures sway in the wind. During these recordings, the movement in the lights above was quite dramatic.

Singing Floodlights by seaworthy

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

Broken Estuary

In Aprill 2011, I was working on the far north coast of NSW. After considerable rainfall, many of the local estuaries that had been cut off from the ocean by an accumulation of sand now spilled across the beach as tannin stained water flowed to the sea. The overflows cut into the beach, creating new creeklike connections. The sounds here are of the fast flowing water across the beach and between debris, chunks of sand falling from the creek's edges into the water and distinct thunder as a new storm front approaches.

Broken Estuary by seaworthy

Site Listening

Make sure you pay a visit to the wonderful Site Listening website for a collection of sounds and locations in QLD compiled by Lawrence English (Room40, 12k, Touch).

Seaworthy Show Sat 4 June Sydney