I’ve developed an intermittent habit of gathering birdsong in the morning. It began on holiday visits to my childhood home in western Massachusetts after I moved to Maine in 1998. The early morning sounds emanating from the wooded swamp behind the house filled me with a mix of nostalgia and wonder. I wanted to hold on to them, to carry these morning sounds with me. It fits with my tendency to collect and document things, in the hope that someday I will use these words, these sounds, these photos, these particular boxes of things.
My audio recordings of birdsong increased with frequency this past year. I gathered the sound of morning outside the little house in the woods we left in southwestern Connecticut, then the sound of migratory birds sweeping through the rural backyard of the short-term home where my daughter and I lived during our first months in the Upper Valley. As the pandemic unfolded, we adjusted to being homebound, and I became more attuned to sound. Now in a different home, I gather the sounds of veery and wood thrush before sunrise. If I wait too long, the swoosh of I-91, the clangs and bangs of the nearby gravel pit, and the high-pitched bellow of the twice or thrice daily freight train create an odd symphony with robins, catbirds, crows, and the occasional raven. I miss the “quiet” of the wooded backyards, but I admit I like the utilitarian sounds closer to the center of town. We are back at work, and there is comfort in that.
This reminds me of Frederick, the mouse in Leo Lionni’s children’s book of the same name. Frederick gathers colors and poems while the other seemingly pragmatic mice are gathering food for the long winter ahead. No one understands why he spends his time this way (many of my poet and artist friends can likely relate) until midwinter. During the long, dark nights, short on food, they rely on Frederick’s vibrant stories to carry them through. I imagine someday I will rely on this memorializing of sound. This issue of the magazine feels a little bit like Frederick’s work: a gathering of colors and stories, threaded with references to sound and music.
We’re introducing a new department on the technology of forest and wildlife monitoring, and begin with an article that explores bioacoustics. Last fall, Northern Woodlands Conference-goers so enjoyed the presentation by Laurel Symes of Cornell’s Center for Conservation Bioacoustics, that we decided to start the series with her research on tree crickets and what visualizing and mapping their sounds reveal about meadow ecosystems. The inspiration of birdsong to classical music – and one’s profession – is woven into Howard Norman’s touching eulogy to a friend who died of Covid-19. And the abstract painting of Ying Li, featured in “Outdoor Palette,” is influenced by both music and landscape, expressed in her paintings with robust and vibrant exclamations of color. All food for the long winter ahead.
Speaking of gathering, we have a selection from Clare Walker Leslie’s new book, A Year in Nature: A Memoir of Solace, on page 62. I once kept personal and nature journals faithfully too. Clare reminds us of the value of recording nature and thought, as we see it, imagine it, hear it, and feel it. Sharing her personal entries suits this time of reflection many of us are experiencing. As I renew my own journaling practice in a new place, Clare’s work also has me contemplating how sound – and silence – are woven into each day.
Sound is part of how we define home, and I wonder about how our homes define what we hear. How access to places with trees – whether it be urban parks or wild, wooded paths or working forests – can bring comfort and respite. For everyone to have access to a diverse soundscape – to be free to gather birdsong and the music of crickets as you wish – wouldn’t that be a beautiful thing?