Do you ever spend time outside with the intent of listening? Closing your eyes, opening your ears, and taking in all of the sounds around you? This might sound like a form of meditation — and maybe it is to some — but when we combine it with the art of nature journaling, we begin to cultivate a practice of keeping track of both our inner and our outer landscapes. Nature journaling is used to keep a record of where we are, what we hear, and where we hear it. Put it together with the presence, and stillness, of meditation… and you get a practice called Sound Mapping. Sound mapping can take a few different forms, but in its essence it requires the participant to go outside, sit down or walk slowly, and spatially record all the sounds they hear. Sound identification isn’t required, nor is it necessary, to be a soundscape artist. Sound mapping can take many forms. Check out some of the options below.

You can take part in sound mapping wherever, even in your own backyard! Try going to different areas and being open, curious, and ready to ask questions: Where are there more sounds? Fewer? Louder? More consistent? Do the sounds change based on time of day? Year?

You can take some of the simplest records by noting the sources of sound. Scientists have lumped all sound into three categories: anthrophony (noise created by humans and their technology), biophony (noise created by animals and plants), and geophony (noise created by the earth’s mechanisms). When sound mapping, take note of how the soundscape around you can be categorized. How does the soundscape change? Which category is heard more often, and where?

In early July, I went out to Great Peninsula Conservancy’s Misery Point Preserve, near the town of Seabeck, and sat down to map some of the sounds I heard. I’ll share my sound map after I steep you in place. Listen to the audio clip below as you continue reading. What sounds can you hear? Are there described sounds that are missing? What do you think you would be able to hear, sitting on the beach, that the microphone isn’t picking up? How does a recording on a phone make sounds different than in real life (e.g., wind)?

Audio clip by Micaela Petrini and John F. Williams

It’s the Fourth of July weekend, and folks are taking full advantage of the bright sun, cool breeze, and an open, sparkling playground. Boats are moving up and down Hood Canal, and their wakes crash against the stones on the beach. Speedboats, sailboats, fishing vessels, small yachts, kayaks…the voices of the people inside of them carry across the water, bounce off the feeder bluffs behind me, and trickle down to my ears. It sounds like a low phone conversation with bad reception. My innate sense of curiosity makes me momentarily strain to hear conversations better — if I owned a yacht, what would I talk about? If I were kayaking over eelgrass beds, what would I point out to my friends? What would I say to three rowdy kids on a boat over open water?

My attention shifts towards other sounds. Anthrophonic in nature, I hear a family playing in the water; they’re around the bend in the tip of Misery Point, so I can’t see them, but their echoing laughter skips over the water like small, flat stones. The waves, varying in size because of the activity out on the water, crash, pull, and repeat on the rocky beach. Their character reveals the activity out on the water, and they muffle some of the anthrophonic sounds that would otherwise be too sharp and droning.

In the forest behind me, sitting on top of feeder bluffs over 40 feet high, the breeze blows through Douglas-fir, bigleaf maple, western hemlock, and Pacific madrone. At the base of the bluff, where I have set up my towel, a red alder whispers in the wind. Birds sing and call — notably Pacific slope flycatcher, bald eagle, and the occasional crow. Across the water, faster than the boats this close to shore, a belted kingfisher chatters and swoops. This area is spawning ground for Pacific sand lance and surf smelt, important forage fish for salmon, and the forage fish are just coming out of their spawning season. Perhaps it’s this resource that makes the kingfisher sing, and what keeps the bald eagle around.

I sit in the sun and listen.

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Thanks so much for your interest and your support.