The audio portion of this story starts with a chorus of croaking frog voices, rising up from a wetland. After a few seconds, the distant call of an owl is introduced.

Autumn Barrett-Morgan first learned about soundscapes when she was studying bird identification in college, but it really come alive after she became a Monitoring Technician with the Friends of Cortes Island Society.  

“In the past two or three years, I started  really diving into the soundscape on the Dillon Creek Wetland Restoration Project. I found it really important in birding, because not all birds are visible or make themselves visible and that left me not knowing who I’m listening to. So it got me really inspired to dive into observing the soundscape through studying the bird calls once I got back home.” 

A series of short whistled hoots mixes with the cresendo of ‘rib-its’ in the audio.

Barrett-Morgan explained, “This is what the soundscape could sound like. That relationship between two species, the Western Screech Owl’s breeding call and the breeding and mating call of the Pacific Chorus Frog a few days before the first day of spring. Of course, we are manipulating that soundscape by playing a recording, but that is what a West Coast wetland could sound like and does sound like in many parts of Western British Columbia,”

“Once you develop and deepen your relationship to the soundscape, you become enchanted by all of the sounds that you hear.  You notice the absence of any species that you’re used to hearing at a certain time of year, it can actually have a profound impact emotionally on someone because the relationship that we have to that species is no longer presenting itself.”

“That’s something that I’ve been really tuned into throughout this Western Screech Owl monitoring project, that FOCI has been embarking upon last spring season, as well as this current one.”

“Sabina Leader Mense and I have been walking the forest at night with volunteers and doing call playback surveys, which is essentially projecting a mating call of the male Western Screech Owl into the forest at night to elicit a response from hopefully another Western Screech Owl. We have had one observation on the northern tip of Cortes Island.”

“I haven’t personally heard a Western Screech Owl on Cortes, and so I don’t have that historical knowledge of that soundscape. But I know that many, many people that grew up here know the  call very well. Over the past few decades that sound has become absent.”

“When I think about soundscapes and species at risk, this is an area where I also feel is often overlooked within soundscapes.” 

“Declining population sizes have, of course, a significant impact on the landscape and the web of life that plays out here on the earth plane, but also in the soundscape.”

“What I love about that recording that we started this interview with was  to be able to actually hear what we could be hearing if Western Screech owls were in this neck of the woods.”

“The more that I’ve tuned into soundscapes, the more aware I’ve become of how I contribute to a soundscape, especially in an ecosystem.  I find that so fascinating, especially using my Zoom recorder and hearing things so much more amplified. It makes me very aware of every movement that I make, every sound of my footprints, the sound of shuffling papers or sipping on a coffee. I’m speaking to what it in means for species at risk and wildlife. Every sound that exists in our surrounding environment is the soundscape.”

“Another aspect I also find really cool is there is an actual study of bioacoustics that scientists master in and develop studies around.”

“There’s even studies around the concept that every bird is actually within a frequency range. Their calls don’t compete with other species who might be calling at the same time. They’re reaching different frequencies so that their sounds aren’t being canceled out.” 

“Soundscape is just so fascinating and I hope this really encourages listeners to just close their eyes and open up their ears to the sounds that surround us. Just sit and listen, observe, and just enjoy your time building your relationship with your ears. We are so blessed to live in this part of the world, with so many natural sounds to observe and to help us ground our nervous systems.”

“That’s what I find in the soundscape in particular. If I’m ever feeling anxious or overwhelmed, just closing my eyes and listening helps me feel a part of something so much bigger than just myself.”

“ When I’m sitting   by a pond, especially at night, I’m tuning in with my ears and relating to the environment at that moment of thousands of frogs congregating in this wetland  to mate, and for the succession of their species. I just find this also a very beautiful moment, and it comes through listening and observing through sound. You can start to pick out individual frogs. It’s not just the symphony. You can hear the symphony, but there’s certain frogs that are a little closer.”

 “A friend introduced me to a Zoom recorder, which became an amazing tool in birding and in exploring soundscapes. You could plug the headphones into it and actually turn up the volume on life. That was very exciting for me because I didn’t have to focus so much on identification of those species.  I could record those species and identify them later.”

“I really loved having that Zoom recorder because It helped me be present in the moment and not worry about losing data because I wasn’t identifying species in real time.  Furthermore, I was able to just sit with the soundscape and tune into those subtle differences in frequencies. For example,  a bird over on one side of the wetland and a bird on the other side, communicating to each other. It helped me to develop my soundscape observation, which in turn enhanced my identification skills.”

Friends of Cortes Island will be holding a presentation about the Western Screech Owl, in the Linnaea Farm Education Centre, at 2 PM on Saturday, March 25. 

“We’re having Emily Upham Mills,  Ecosystem Biologist from the Ministry of Water, Land and Resource Stewardship, speaking more about this project,” said Barrett-Morgan. “Specifically  a little bit more about Western Screech Owl natural history and also having an experiential moment listening to some of the results that we collected last year with our autonomous recording units.“

Links of Interest

• Cortes Currents articles about, or mentioning, Soundscapes
• Cortes Currents articles about, or mentioning, Western Screech Owls
• Cortes Currents articles about, or mentioning, Pacific Tree Frogs

To photo credit: Sabina Leader Mense and Autumn Barrett-Morgan – submitted photo

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