SOUNDS LIKE: The 'shhhh' sound that tropical dreams are made of as gentle waves roll through mangrove trees on an island paradise. It's hushed and peaceful.
CONTAINS: Soft waves, and salt water moving quite continuously. Quiet insects throughout. The sounds occupy different frequencies and rhythms so they can all be heard clearly even when they're all calling. Listen for high pitched maraca-like single shakes, rickety-whirring phrases, tiny yaps marking a beat, or what sounds like a tiny mobile phone calling somewhere around 9khz.
RECOMMENDED FOR: Fans of quiet white noise, waves and water sounds. Or those who like blocking out noisy colleagues by putting on outrageously large headphones and listening to the ocean instead.
ANN'S NERDY SOUND NOTES:
This place is White Lotus meets scientific research. At the Orpheus Island Research Station, the island is skirted by bright white sand, its steep hills covered in green vegetation, but rather than pleasure craft, it's practical research vessels anchored in the bay.
Located in the Palm Islands on the southern end of the Great Barrier Reef, the Research Station is the sort of place that needs a dive shed (for all the gear), plus a fire pit (for evenings becoming mosquito food donors) and a wary eye (for the huge goanna that keeps on patrolling the shoreline).
I was visiting to film for Dr Ann's Secret Lives: bull sharks.
But this recording is not of the hectic process of catching a 200kg shark.
Instead, this is from the mainland-facing side of Goolboodi, AKA Orpheus Island, in the sea country of the Manbarra people about 110km north of Townsville.
The inlet is shallow, with a sweeping mudflat exposed at low tide, and epic mangrove trees around the edge. They're shaped like the 'tree of life' with roots spanning tens of metres and canopies to match, and the waves are forced to move through the roots, backwards and forwards, all night.
The recorder is attached to one of those trees — and its roots split the waves into hundreds of smaller pulses, so the rhythm is echoed and split, swirling and sometimes even gurgling.
But, as the water recedes, the waves become more distant and more individually distinct. Eventually, rather than pushing onto the roots, the water filters through sand and mudflat, making the 'shhhhh' sound that tropical dreams are made of.
You will hear the occasional plonk, bump or metallic sound as the research boats anchored further out in the bay interact with the rolling water.
00:24:12 and 25:15 An Eastern Koel calling in the night. They call quite incessantly as they're relatively nomadic and their relationships are fleeting. So they're always on the bird equivalent of the apps (screaming a lot in case anyone hears).
