Nature Track

In 1977, we sent a Golden Record of the sounds of Earth into space with NASA's Voyager probes. This 'cosmic' calling card inspired the program team to make this - a golden record of Australian sounds. It varies from Nature Track - there are human made sounds and there are human voices, these soundscapes are layered sounds from all over Australia - they're not natural soundscapes. To create the sou...

No music. No voices. Just the sound of a creek bed in outback Australia. In the Murchison district in Western Australia you're surrounded by low lying ranges where rocks have been found that are 4.4 billion years old — they're almost as ancient as the planet itself. Among the crests and dips of Wajarri country is a creek bed on Boolardy Station. Not flowing, but water is still there. And the place...

No music, no human voices. Just the sound of an epic summer storm rolling on through the evening. I recorded this at my home. It had been a hot day, and in the late afternoon there was a crack of thunder. I walked out, set the recorder near the woodpile and recorded into the night. In this recording you can hear rain falling, hitting the earth and also hitting the microphones. And you can hear lot...

No music, no human voices, just the sound of night falling over bushland near Narrabri, recorded by the ABC's Ann Jones. It sounds like camping. Narrabri is in North West NSW, in an incredibly fertile farming area. And yep, you guessed it, where it's fertile, it means you won't get much bushland left intact. This bushland is a patch on the Llara Farm which is used by the University of Sydney for r...

No music. No voices. Just the sound of a quiet ocean inlet in the early evening, recorded by the ABC's Dr Ann Jones. This shoreline is home to many wallabies; will they make any sound? This was recorded over the summer of 2021/22 as I was spending time on Phillip Island / Millowl in Victoria, filming for 'Meet the Penguins' on ABC TV. I put the recorder out at Rhyll Inlet as the sun is setting. It...

No music. No human voices. Just the sound of a frog chorus and a pre-dawn rain shower in arid Western Australia, recorded on location by the ABC's Dr Ann Jones.  Get in a car in Perth and drive 4 hours northeast to sit beside a pool of water as the frogs call and rain rolls in. It's an hour before dawn. This soundscape was recorded on Badimaya country on Charles Darwin Reserve which is owned by Bu...

No music, no voices. Just the sound of the mountain ash forest, recorded by the ABC's Dr Ann Jones. The mountain ash is the tallest flowering plant in the world, a eucalypt that can reach 90m in height. And beneath its arbour is an incredible array of wildlife, including an incredible chorus of birds. I recorded this while filming 'Australia's Favourite Tree' for ABC TV near Marysville in Victoria...

No music, no talking, just the sound of a rain storm in the desert. Wiluna is a town on the Traditional lands of the Martu people in Western Australia. It’s on gorgeous arid country, about 960km east of Perth. After days of dry heat in excess of 40, it was late afternoon when a huge storm rolled in. Nowhere has storms like the desert, where the hot air rises off the ground to meet the clouds with...

No music, no voices, just imagine you’re camping beside a creek in early spring.   Listening Notes from Ann:   It was the first hot day of Spring on Wadawurrung Country west of Melbourne. Out of bed before the sun, I walked through the bush listening to the last of the nocturnal sounds, and found a place on a ridgeline overlooking a creek.   There are hundreds of large trees with lots of hollows a...

No music, no voices, just the sound of night time at a swamp on Wadawarrung Country in Victoria.   Listening Notes from Ann Jones:  There are at least three species of frogs calling all the way through this recording – maybe more. And they provide a wonderful blanket of noise for you to snuggle under. Here’s what I can hear:   00:00:07 – The ‘tonk’, ‘bonk’ and ‘donk’ of the pobblebonk (Limnodynast...

No music, no voices, just the sound of the forest waking up. I made this recording on a wintery morning, outside a hut high up in the mountains of Gippsland on Gunaikurnai land. I arrived in the dark and didn’t realise how high up the hill I was. As the sun rose it took time for it to reach the bottom of the gullies, and so the dawn chorus extended longer and was more distant and echoey. It’s hard...

No music, no voices, just the sound of the forest waking up. This recording was made while traveling through Whadjuk Nyoongar land, WA. The birds differ between east and west Australia. That huge swathe of arid country in between has meant that birds have evolved into different sub-species, species and variants.  Listening notes from Ann Jones: 00:00:00 Normally I would cut out my footsteps walkin...

No music, no voices, just the sound of a spring shower hitting a corrugated iron roof. This recording was made on Wadawurrung Country, in west Victoria, Australia. Listening notes from Ann Jones: 00:02:00 Wind in the trees, and grey currawongs calling to each other in chiming duets. 00:06:00 Galahs fly past, their nesting hollow is close by. 00:07:41 I think this could be brown thornbills, tiny li...

No music, no voices, just the sound of the forest coming to life early one morning near Canberra -- where the gum trees grow small and with twisting white trunks. In the twilight of the morning I creep out from under the covers to set up the microphones right next to a dam. We are on the land of the Ngunnawal and Ngambri people, and not far away there are paddocks, livestock, a road and a farmhous...

No music, no voices, just the sound of the Roebuck Bay mudflats near Broome, WA. Hear the breeze across the water, crabs and mudskippers flipping and flopping, and a tide that slowly comes in. Roebuck Bay is on the traditional lands of the Yawuru people is one of the most magical places in Australia. It is a 34,119-hectare mudflat, washed every day by a tide that reaches kilometres from the shorel...

No music, no voices, just the sound of a valley halfway up a Tasmanian mountain. This soundscape is full of birds and breeze echoing backwards and forwards across a reservoir. Kunyani is swirled with mist and the city of Hobart spreads below, in miniature, on a still, early morning.   We’re halfway up the mountain, at the Hobart Waterworks Reserve where two huge reservoirs store water for use by t...

No music, no voices, just the sound of a gentle stream and frogs calling on a still, cool night in regional Victoria. Moonlight floods the landscape of Wadawurrung country. Big, old candlebarks stand still and silent and a creek flows through a shallow valley. Grasses grow up to the waist, except where kangaroos have been nibbling them! And within the sedges by the creek lurk frogs who revel in th...