One of my favorite places to visit and record in northern Nevada is Stillwater National Wildlife Refuge, near Fallon. It’s a collection of ponds, ditches, and marshes, where the Carson and a portion of the Truckee Rivers end. It is such a critical oasis in the arid Great Basin that it’s part of the Western […]
Seasons of Stillwater revisited Read More »
A quick trip to Lassen Volcanic National Park to see the impact of the Dixie Fire reveals some new sounds of the changing forest.
Dead Trees Talking Read More »
The snow is falling in the Sierras and northern Nevada has settled into its winter soundscapes. Insects have gone quiet and the birds are too busy looking for food to make much noise. It’s a good time to organize and sort out the huge number of sound files I collected last spring and summer. One
On a warm summer evening Read More »
The Jarbidge Mountain area, in far northeastern Nevada, is considered one of the most remote areas in the lower 48. So naturally, I wanted to check it out, but was a little intimidated by some skirmishes between local ranchers and federal land managers. So when Lang Elliot, in the midst of his sound recording tour
Like many nature recordists, I’m a bit obsessed with recording the spring dawn chorus. It’s dynamic variety, changing by the minute, the day, the season, the habitat, is like candy for the ears. However, I’m almost as fascinated by the night sounds – the singing insects and amphibians, the owls, the night jars, and the
Night sounds in a desert canyon Read More »
The final days of my fall 2016 border-to-border journey I awoke to a beautiful, calm and sunny morning along Disappointment Creek in Colorado; the silence only broken by a light whisper through the sage brush and a car on the distant highway. After breakfast, I packed up the car and headed south. I made a
Changes in latitude Read More »
The Chiricahua Mountains are one of the largest of the “Sky Island” ranges that separate the Sierra Madre of Mexico from the Rocky Mountains of the US and Canada. It is a rich, convoluted mountain range, and like most of the adjacent ranges, high in plant and animal diversity. These ranges are subject to frequent wildfires, and
Chiricahuas Revisited Read More »
There are a lot of interesting sounds that are seldom heard except at night. Not just bats and owls, but also a variety of insects: crickets, bush crickets, and beetles, to name a few. The insects like warm nights, and so that’s also when you have more insect predators, like the bats. It’s been really
Chasing night sounds Read More »
With some writing projects behind me (or at least on someone else’s desk for a while), I finally have some time to get out and do some recording. In mid May, I headed south to Las Cienegas National Conservation Area, which is a lovely swatch of rolling grassland and riparian areas, only about 25 miles
Till the cows go home Read More »
Threading its way north from the mountains of northern Mexico, the San Pedro River meanders to the Gila River, then westward to join the Colorado River on its way back to Mexico. It is one of the few remaining undammed rivers (in the desert, they call any flowing water a “river”) in the US. It
San Pedro River–the thin fragile line Read More »
I recently returned to Arizona, after spending the entire summer in northern Nevada. My first stop on my way south was in the newly designated Basin and Range National Monument in southern Nevada. I spent the first night at a little campground on the Pahranagat National Wildlife Refuge, which comprises a series of wetlands near
Seeking quiet in eastern Nevada Read More »
This summer has been a tough one for recording. With much of the mountainous west either on fire, freshly blackened from a fire, or waiting to burn, camping out in the mountains while hoping for something to record is a scary proposition. I’ve spent most of my time sequestered away from the heat working on
One marsh, many voices Read More »
