Long Lake Sounds Like a Synthesized Ruffed Grouse

lake_ice1Click here to listen at the Cornell ornithology site for the drumming of a ruffed grouse.  Click here to listen to what the lake was doing today.  As the ice cracks, especially with temperature changes when the sound isn’t muffled by a lot of snow, the entire surface of Long Lake becomes an acoustic membrane.  The lake sounds today didn’t suddenly start rat-a-tatting super fast, like the grouse at the end of his drumming.  And the linked lake recording by sound artist Andreas Bick was made through a hole in the ice that amplified the “boinging.”  So,  Long Lake wasn’t sounding as much like Han Solo’s light saber as in Bick’s recording.  But every few minutes the ice was singing in low, amplified burps of sound.  Eerie.  Beautiful.  A little like ruffed grouse.  A little  like Star Wars.  A little like whale song.  A little like nothing I ever heard before.

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