Jonathan Levinsohn
It took me several trips to the Eastlawn cemetery before I was able to get what I was looking for—a recording—however this was a nice opportunity to see my site at several different times throughout the day in relatively quick succession. My first trip was on Sunday, October 25th, 2009, at midnight. It was bitterly cold. I did not measure the temperature, I could not only see my breath, it prevented me from seeing much with my headlamp. I stopped at the top of the hill as I decided whether it would be a good decision to walk down to the river and listened. I could hear the river and a slight breeze. I used the digital recorded and could hear nothing. I assumed that I needed to be closer to the sound’s origin to pick it up on the recorded and I decided that I would return when walking down to the river would not be so precarious.
The next morning, it was much warmer when I arrived at 9:30 (7O C). I heard the chatter of a red squirrel, which I have heard before in the site, some cars on nearby route 2, the mew of a catbird and the rushing of the Green River, which was still very full from the recent rainstorm. I was unable to hear any of this, however on the digital recorder. I decided to formally look though the site, anyways. I immediately noticed a family of white tail deer. I could only make out a smaller deer (the size of a faun) and a larger deer. I could only see their white tails. The winged euonymus’ leaves had finally turned bright red, and the Norway maple had a slight yellow tinge in its leaves. There was some sumac fruit on the ground, though most was still on the trees, which had no leaves left. The honeysuckle had its leaves, along with the grape vine; the honeysuckle’s was shriveled. The sugar maple had also lost all of its leaves but still had its brown-ridged helicopter seeds. The buckthorn and the multiflora rose still had all green leaves. The white snakeroot leaves were crispy and most of the fluffy seeds were gone, and the pokeweed was entirely brown save the base of the stem and the tissue that secure the fruit to the plant. Few of the ferns that I had noticed earlier remained in identifiable condition. The area next to the river was flooded. I could see several puddles and the plants were knocked sideways towards down river indicating that excess runoff had pushed the plants into this position. Among the new discoveries was a Japanese Barberry, that still had red leaves and fruit, and several new beer cans near the edge of the area.
I returned that evening with a borrowed camera to take some images of the site. Both how difficult it was to get quality images with reduced light and also how quiet it was astounded me. I could hear nothing other than the river, though I fully expected some animal activity, though I saw and heard none. Not ever squirrels. I have heard that animals are often most active at dusk and dawn, but I have seen the most activity of birds, and rodents in the mid-morning. Thus I decided to return the next morning to make a recording with a functioning digital recorder.
The next morning was windy and it felt cold (though it was only about 4O C). I would estimate gusts were about 15 kph. They were mowing the grass in the cemetery, but I was unable to pick that up. All I could pick up was the wind, and the chatter of a squirrel, which carried on longer than usual. I heard some birds, but could not figure out where they were and was unable to point the recorder in the correct direction to get a recording. I do not know what species they were, but they did not sound like a catbird; it twittered instead of mewing. I also recorded the river flowing near a particularly swift and rocky portion, though the recording did not come out very well.
Sound from Tuesday morning (10/27/09) pictures from Monday evening (10/26/09)