In May, I headed back to explore the Conastee Nature Preserve in Greenville, South Carolina.

It had just rained for a whole week straight and the floodplain forest was indeed flooded. The froggy bottom trail I usually take was completely underwater. Because of this, I had to find an alternate route to the main raised boardwalk trail.

I noticed that there was a lot of fresh beaver activity on several large trees. It’s amazing how much bark they can eat in a short period of time. Many of the trees here are surrounded with metal fencing to protect against beaver damage. In this video you can see why this protection is needed!

While walking on the main boardwalk, I noticed the bright red color of several crayfish exoskeletons. I think a racoon must have had a feast here.

On my way back to my car, I found a beautiful box turtle. It was really calm with my presence and allowed me to get super close to it! The patterns and colors of its shell are incredible. Check it out near the end of this video!

Thank you for watching and reading ♫

My Motivation:

As a naturalist and field recording artist, I am seeking the quietest places in the world. Along my travels, I capture recordings of singing birds, rain showers, waterfalls, bugs and other natural sounds. I believe there is medicine in these sonic landscapes and I want to share these healing sounds with you.

Our genetic code evolved alongside nature and hardwired us to respond to our landscape. That’s why it’s natural to relax while listening to birds, jump in response to snakes, and even to sleep at night!

I hope that by listening to natural soundscapes, you will reconnect with nature and your higher self. Allow nature to teach you through her sounds. Acoustic Nature: Nature is calling, it’s time we listened.

How I Record:

I recorded these sounds with a Sony D100 and a DIY binaural recording rig that uses ultra low self noise microphone capsules. The specific capsules are Primo EM172. I use an array of paired capsules, wired in parallel, to record clean and crisp natural soundscapes. Recording with this setup, I am able to capture the sounds of nature as we really hear them. Because each pair of mic capsules represents a human ear, the resulting audio is directional (binaural), and creates a 3D atmosphere of sounds. To fully experience this effect, please use headphones ☺

Soundscape Recording Equipment:

•Sony D100
•DIY Binaural SASS with Primo EM172 mic capsules
•Olympus LS-10 PCM Recorder
•Benro Tripod
•A Winter Hat (Wind Protection lol)

If you would like to learn and hear more please check out these sites:

My Website:
Soundcloud:
Instagram:

Thank you for reading + listening ♫

-Jared

Comments are closed.