February 27, 2025 • 30 mins
Welcome Home Everybody!
A few weeks ago I managed to get my hands on a new microphone developed by the field recordist and sound artist Jez Riley French. The ecoutic is an adapted version of Jez’s popular c-series contact microphone. Short or long metal probes attach to the original c-series microphone body. These probes allow the microphone to penetrate soils, substrates, plant stems and many other materials, enabling very fine sound within these materials to be detected without the low rumble often associated with this kind of recording.
Excited to try the microphone, and confident that our Sidestrand School group would be equally enthused, Rob and I agreed that trips to the woods at Sheringham Park, and the gardens at Felbrigg Hall might offer good opportunities for fruitful sound exploration.
LINKS
Sheringham Park
Felbrigg Hall
Ecoutic Microphone
Martin Noble-James
HomeSounds Show Supporters Club
A few weeks ago I managed to get my hands on a new microphone developed by the field recordist and sound artist Jez Riley French. The ecoutic is an adapted version of Jez’s popular c-series contact microphone. Short or long metal probes attach to the original c-series microphone body. These probes allow the microphone to penetrate soils, substrates, plant stems and many other materials, enabling very fine sound within these materials to be detected without the low rumble often associated with this kind of recording.
Excited to try the microphone, and confident that our Sidestrand School group would be equally enthused, Rob and I agreed that trips to the woods at Sheringham Park, and the gardens at Felbrigg Hall might offer good opportunities for fruitful sound exploration.
LINKS
Sheringham Park
Felbrigg Hall
Ecoutic Microphone
Martin Noble-James
HomeSounds Show Supporters Club
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
Welcome home, everybody, and welcome to the Home Sounds Show.
My name is Martin and I'm a field recordistant teacher.
I'm the creator of the Home Sounds Project and your
co host for the show along with Rob.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
Hello everybody. My name is Rob and I'm an educator
and naturalist. I work for the National Trust at Sheringham
Park in Norfolk as part of their Children and Young
People Hub. The Home Sound Show invites everyone to become
active environmental listeners. Each month we visit a different location,
seeking out seasonal natural sound and focusing on a different theme.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
A few weeks ago, I managed to get my hands
on a new microphone developed by the field recorded and
sound artist Jez Riley French. The Ecoutic is an adapted
version of Jez's popular C series contact microphone short or
long metal probes attached to the original microphone body. These
probes allow the microphone to penetrate soils, substrates, plants, stems,
(01:38):
and many other materials, enabling very fine sound within these
materials to be detected without the low rumble often associated
with this kind of recording. Excited to try the microphone
and confident that our Sidestrand's school group would be equally enthused.
Rob and I agreed that trips to the woods at
Sheringham Park and the gardens at Fell we Call might
(02:01):
offer good opportunities for fruitful sound exploration.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
Right, hello, everybody, Happy New year?
Speaker 3 (02:17):
Are you?
Speaker 2 (02:17):
Are we alive? Okay? Super job, So first time we've
met this year. Plan is a bit different from what
we've done before. I think is we're going to do
a bit of our even get run over by that
calm we have a walk about. The theme of today
(02:39):
is we're going to be listening for sounds in the soil,
sounds of the soil because who thought? Who knew the
soil made sound?
Speaker 4 (02:51):
Well?
Speaker 2 (02:51):
I mean, to be honest, we don't necessarily know if
the thorn makes sound. That's why we're going to go
and try and listen to it. So we're going to
put some probes into the soil and see what we
can hear. I mean, what, why would what? What sort
of sounds might be in the soil?
Speaker 4 (03:07):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (03:07):
I reckon, I reckon the living things might make noises
as they move around, and there also might just be
kind of sounds of the earth essentially, isn't there? Yeah,
the earth moves as well doesn't it Well, who knows,
who knows? Yeah, there might be all sorts of all
(03:30):
sorts of things. So that's the plan, and the way
we're going to do it is we've got a new
might's got a special new rig new gadget set up,
so it's going to be good. So you know, normally
we like to trial wires around and get them all
wrapped around our necks and generally we've gone completely Wi fi.
This is completely wireless now, so treat them with care.
(03:55):
They're wireless headphones, and so we're going to do that
in the morning. So we're going to be out in
the woods, probably a little bit off the beaten track,
because if we go to places that we often do
activities in the saw gets quite compacted, so we reckon that.
If we go to places where people don't normally go
and people don't normally tread, that might be better just
(04:20):
to be aware of that. Is we are off the
beaten tracks, so there might be some trip hazards, some
low hanging branches to poke you in the eye, and
all that sort of stuff. So we're just going to
be a little bit careful in those situations. What I'm
going to say to anyone who hasn't done it yet.
Coats don't really work if you have them open, because
they work by trapping that layer of warm air. And
(04:42):
it is quite chully today, so so do do that
coat up and then after this morning when I have a
couple of hours doing this, and then the plan is
after lunch is go over the fell Brig's under your
route back anyway, isn't it. And we'll a little bit
different in the garden at Fell Brig where the land
(05:03):
is cultivated, so it might be in cultivated grounds might
be a bit different from natural ground that we're kind
of that's what we're kind of thinking about today. And
whether you want to have you look here or go
with the feld, we to have it. It's one of
the fee which cafe people. So that's that's what's feel
I'll leave it uponder that.
Speaker 1 (05:26):
We perhaps give little thought to the soil beneath our feet,
and when it impacts on our consciousness it is the
frequent dismay of muddy boots in the house or the
embarrassment of a long unwashed car. But of course soil
is a vital component of all land ecosystems, and without
it there would be nothing to eat. Considering its prime
(05:48):
importance to agriculture, there is still a surprising amount to
learn about dirt. The scientific understanding of soil was pioneered
in the eighteen hundreds lead life, largely by chemists and
refined by agricultural scientists working in laboratories, greenhouses, and small
field plots. The vital nutrients for plant growth of nitrogen,
(06:11):
phosphorus and potassium or NPK, and the way they cycled
through soil became established, and much emphasis was placed on
retaining soil fertility. This proved to be an elusive gold
and farmers relied on additives, with British farmers importing massive
quantities of bird guano from Peru to support production in
(06:33):
the nineteenth century. The artificial production of fertilizer followed and
became the mainstay behind the industrialized agriculture that produces our
food today. Soil, however, is more than just a medium
for chemical transfer. Darwin had spent many years studying earthworms
following his return from the Voyage of the Beagle, and
(06:55):
his book in eighteen eighty one entitled A Formation of
Vegetable Mold through the Action of Worms, with Observations of
their habits outsold the more famous Origin of species in
its first year. Darwin's work showed how earthworms enriched and
recycled soil and were capable of complex behaviours. Despite this
(07:17):
early science, twentieth century soil research largely ignored the biological
components of soil, and it is only in the last
thirty years or so that this has gained more of
a focus. We know that soil can be a complex
ecosystem in its own right, with a food web comprising
of microscopic fungi, bacteria, nematodes and protists, as well as
(07:38):
a host of larger creatures, adding an enormous invertebrate diversity. Intriguingly,
the emerging field of ecoacoustics is providing a new tool
to analyze life in the soil without the need for
a spade sensitive probe. Microphones placed in soil can detect
the sounds and movements made by soil organisms, and tools
(07:59):
are being dive up to distinguish individual biophonic signals from
background non biological noise. In the future, this technology has
vast potential to improve the management, conservation, and restoration of
soil ecosystems in a cost effective non invasive and efficient manner,
recalling Darwin's experiments where he placed pots of worms on
(08:22):
the piano and played to them, eliciting an excited response.
We will now be listening to the soil with more interest.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
Yeah, Martin making malehold throughout the beginning. That was pretty
fresh to me.
Speaker 3 (08:43):
Can we just.
Speaker 2 (08:46):
Sort of give that a whirl? Can that pop me again?
Speaker 5 (08:58):
I think that's foe.
Speaker 1 (09:51):
The well known idiom don't make a mountain out of
a mole hill dates to Tudor times, but don't mention
this to brown law owners. These little tumps of excavated
soil assume exaggerated proportions in the eyes of some, but
are normally the only evidence of one of our most
wide spread and fascinating mammals. The male moles spend almost
(10:14):
all their lives underground, and as so escape natural predation,
although the damage they can potentially cause to farm machinery
and amenity grass lands such as golf courses, means that
humans are their primary persecutor. Since the withdrawal of the
use of strychnine poison to control moles in two thousand
and six, it was feared that mole populations would increase
(10:37):
but this hasn't been the case. Moles are perfectly adapted
to their subterranean lives, with small, yet stout, cylindrical bodies
covered in black, velvety fur. This smooth moleskin, only superficially
(10:58):
resembling the cotton based fabric, can be smoothed in any direction,
allowing the wearer friction free passage in tight tunnels. Moles
have small but functional eyes, but their most obvious feature
is their enormous front paws, which are covered in extremely
tough skin and adapted for digging. As well as five claws,
(11:20):
the skeleton of the forelimb features an additional bone which
grows from the wrist and enlarges the width of the hand,
functionally serving as an extra finger. The four paws are
twisted perpendicular to the body, which is perfect for propelling
through soil, but leads to an odd gate on the
rare occasion moles venture above ground. In its underground world,
(11:43):
the moles tactile senses are especially well developed, with cells
at the end of their pink snout and sensory hairs
on the tips of their tail. The tail is carried
erect as the mole moves, brushing the upper surface of
the tunnel and functioning as an additional sensor. Moles are
(12:08):
solitary and construct a network of tunnels which they patrol
in search of prey, largely worms in the winter months,
but a wide range of soil living invertebrates at other times.
To excavate a tunnel, the mole braces itself in position
using its smaller hind feet and one of its front paws,
then claws soil away with a working pore, likely alternating
(12:31):
front paws every few strokes. The hind feet serve to
push the soil behind, and periodically the mole will reverse
its direction to push the soil back down the newly
constructed section of tunnel and out to the growing heap. Occasionally,
in damp conditions, excessively large mole hills can occur, which
(12:53):
contain an above ground bedding chamber and protection from flooding.
These supersized hills are known as fortresses. Voracious predators, moles
must consume around half their own body weighting food each
day to survive, met with a variable supply of worms
(13:17):
in the soil. Excess food is bitten at the back
of the head to immobilize it, and then stored until required.
When eating, a captive worm is held down firmly by
the mole's front feet and squeezed to remove as much
soil as possible before consumption. Moles can only survive where
there is a good population of worms, so may provide
(13:39):
some consolation to the gardener as an indicator of good
soil health, as well as an effective controller of invertebrate
lawn enemies such as leather jackets, wire worms, and chafer grubs.
Speaker 2 (14:01):
Okay, so the next little plant is a bit of
an explore obviously. Now what we got here, This stuff
is what's called leaf litter, and so it's where Yeah, basically,
if you gather a bit of a handful of it,
give it a sniff. I'll tell you what. This was
brave enough to give it a sniff. I am gone, lotty,
(14:29):
really natural smell. All it is is leaves breaking down.
It's actually thought that some of the smells in nature
are really good for us. Charlie. Yeah, so some of
the smells in nature, it's things like the essential oils
(14:50):
that are made by trees and they just vaporize in
the air and it actually helps our body quite disease.
And the same I think is true of all sorts
of different natural smells. But what breaks the leaves down
is the question, because obviously you fall off the tree,
you can see where the basically, yeah, it's living things.
(15:12):
Turn the leaf as you can see, or the green
leaf on the tree to the brown leaf on the ground,
to the what is this the leaf litter? Which is, well,
it's it's actually, you know, it's quite it's a sort
of complex mixture of stuff, isn't it's a sort of
quite a nice smell. And if we sort of analyze
(15:33):
it with a microscope, we'd probably find lots of little
living things in there, springtails and little soil organisms. Yeah,
so let's have a look at the leaf litter and
listen to the leaf litter, but also anything we've all
just spread out, having a bit and explore. Just be
a little bit aware. We're not low branches a little
(15:59):
bit worried about they might ping back. There's the occasional
sort of branch that might be hung up a little
bit of so avoid that. The tree at forty five
degrees will avoid that one. And actually, yeah, there's another
tree here that is it's not over yet, but it's
also forty five degrees, so we'll.
Speaker 1 (16:20):
Avoid that as well, navigating our way through the crunchy
layer of leaf litter, avoiding low branches and spiky outcrops
of holly on the way, we tried to think where
we might capture interesting sounds from the soil. Trees at
the edge of ditches left tantalizing rottholes around their revealed roots,
(16:42):
which to our inexperienced imaginations seemed worth further investigation.
Speaker 2 (17:25):
L So this is Martin another Martin, and you might
(18:17):
have seen I did send you actually the link for
the news article Martin. Well, you've explained what he's been
doing himself, but he's been making music. Do you just
explain it?
Speaker 3 (18:30):
Has Martin been listening? Sort of plugging stuff into mushrooms
and stuff that, all that kind of So I do that,
but then I feed the electrical impulses straight into a synthesizer,
and basically what it does is that all those different pulses,
there's different amounts of electricity, different amounts of voltage. Yeah,
(18:52):
there are different amounts of voltage, And what the synthesizer
does is that the higher the voltage, the higher the
notes the picture of the note it makes. So all
these different voltages that are going in and out that
the plant's producing or the mushroom is producing just by
its ordinary biology, they're just producing sound, producing different notes,
(19:12):
so different, I mean, fairly random tunes, but it kind
of makes tunes. So it's like, you know, the mushroom
isn't really making music, but the music is just like
an indication of what's going on of all the electricity
that's going on in the in the mushroom or in
the plant. So it's kind of a fun way just
to look at what's going on inside it, you know.
Speaker 2 (19:33):
But for the for the next book, for the next
hour or so, you know, we've been listening to stuff
in the soil in the woods, an't we We've been
listening to mule hills, We've been listening to mice and
stuff down their holes, all sorts of things. But what
we're going to do now is we're going to go
into the garden and we're going to just find some
(19:54):
different areas to listen to, and maybe the soil in
the garden is cultivated. All the stuff we've been listen
to so far is all wild, but the sword in
the garden is cultivated, and might see what the difference
makes between the sort of natural leaf litter that we're
all holding earlier and in the arm. That was a
bit an explore. Okay, brilliant, Should we go another another
(20:20):
poker belt?
Speaker 1 (20:24):
We found our first listening opportunity after only a few feet.
A small tussock grass sat invitingly in a large pot,
and after inserting the long probe into the soil, we
stood still and listened as one of the young people
run their hands slowly over its spiky fronds. Inspired by this,
(20:54):
I suggested grabbing a nearby watering can and pouring its
contents into the pot, as I thought we might be
able to hear the water drawing through the soil, and
(22:02):
so I do my.
Speaker 4 (22:03):
Next kid do water this year? That's about the jack
of soil sits in the borders. Yeah high to that flight? Yeah? Ok.
Speaker 1 (22:34):
Then, Since Roman times, we've tried to grow fruits and
flowers from warmer climates than our own. In doing so,
gardeners have built structures to shelter tender plants. Many of
(22:55):
the resulting buildings have been preserved by the National Trust
and Gardens. The length and breadth the country oranges are
tender natives of China. And Southeast Asia. Their flavour and
decorative appearance led to them being grown in England from
Elizabeth Rain onwards, initially planted outside and protected over the
(23:16):
winter by temporary covers. However, during the eighteenth century, permanent
buildings like the orangery at Felbrig were constructed with large
south facing windows to provide light to plants that were
grown in movable tubs. In the summer, they would be
placed out in the garden. Up until the early nineteenth century,
(23:38):
orangeries had little in the way of glass in their roofs,
but the arrival of two more succulent fruits, the pineapple
from South America and grapes from the Mediterranean, prompted innovations,
which led to the evolution of what we now recognize
as a greenhouse with a pitched, glazed roof to harvest
the light. Victorian greenhouses began to also feature heating systems
(24:01):
to allow for the growth conditions of plants that required
high temperatures and a moist climate, such as peaches, figs,
and even bananas. Heating was provided by stoves within the
space or cleverly engineered flues transmitting steam or eventually piped
in hot water precursor to modern central heating. The glasshouses
(24:25):
at Felbrigg never featured such advancements, and the banana plants
growing there are for ornamental value rather than providing edible fruit.
With glass becoming both cheaper and available in larger panels
and heating efficiency improving the number in types of greenhouses
burgeon during the nineteenth century, they now emerge tropical glasshouses,
(24:49):
growing palms and all manner of plants hitherto impossible to
grow in northern climes. The restored glasshouse at Clumber is
a great example and the bigger in the Trust's care,
at four hundred and fifty one feet in length. Venturing
(25:13):
into one of these glasshouses in the Feldbrig gardens, we
came across thick, broken stems of banana plants, appearing saturated.
We wondered if the sound of water traveling through these
stems would be similar to the sound of water percolating
through the soil of the tussograss that we'd recorded earlier.
We inserted the probe into the stem and squeezed our
(26:45):
final sound exploration involved syncing the long ecotic probe into
the compacted soil at the base of a fig tree.
About ten feet away. A mini digger was working a
stretch of ground just beyond the garden hedge.
Speaker 5 (27:08):
I oh, but fine, I don't know.
Speaker 4 (27:29):
You do what you do?
Speaker 2 (27:56):
You can hear the pack that I I I lien that.
Speaker 1 (28:50):
Excuse you've been listening to. Your thanks go to the
children and staff at Sidestan's School and to Martin Noble
James at Felwyck Hall. If you'd like to keep listening,
please subscribe to the Home Sound Show through your podcast provider,
(29:13):
or visit the Home Sounds Show on spreaker dot com.
You can also visit homesounds dot org, where you will
find many more opportunities to actively listen and numerous ways
to support and get involved with the Home Sounds project.
Links relating to this episode can be found in the
description Thanks for listening, and welcome home, everybody.
Welcome home, everybody, and welcome to the Home Sounds Show.
My name is Martin and I'm a field recordistant teacher.
I'm the creator of the Home Sounds Project and your
co host for the show along with Rob.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
Hello everybody. My name is Rob and I'm an educator
and naturalist. I work for the National Trust at Sheringham
Park in Norfolk as part of their Children and Young
People Hub. The Home Sound Show invites everyone to become
active environmental listeners. Each month we visit a different location,
seeking out seasonal natural sound and focusing on a different theme.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
A few weeks ago, I managed to get my hands
on a new microphone developed by the field recorded and
sound artist Jez Riley French. The Ecoutic is an adapted
version of Jez's popular C series contact microphone short or
long metal probes attached to the original microphone body. These
probes allow the microphone to penetrate soils, substrates, plants, stems,
(01:38):
and many other materials, enabling very fine sound within these
materials to be detected without the low rumble often associated
with this kind of recording. Excited to try the microphone
and confident that our Sidestrand's school group would be equally enthused.
Rob and I agreed that trips to the woods at
Sheringham Park and the gardens at Fell we Call might
(02:01):
offer good opportunities for fruitful sound exploration.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
Right, hello, everybody, Happy New year?
Speaker 3 (02:17):
Are you?
Speaker 2 (02:17):
Are we alive? Okay? Super job, So first time we've
met this year. Plan is a bit different from what
we've done before. I think is we're going to do
a bit of our even get run over by that
calm we have a walk about. The theme of today
(02:39):
is we're going to be listening for sounds in the soil,
sounds of the soil because who thought? Who knew the
soil made sound?
Speaker 4 (02:51):
Well?
Speaker 2 (02:51):
I mean, to be honest, we don't necessarily know if
the thorn makes sound. That's why we're going to go
and try and listen to it. So we're going to
put some probes into the soil and see what we
can hear. I mean, what, why would what? What sort
of sounds might be in the soil?
Speaker 4 (03:07):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (03:07):
I reckon, I reckon the living things might make noises
as they move around, and there also might just be
kind of sounds of the earth essentially, isn't there? Yeah,
the earth moves as well doesn't it Well, who knows,
who knows? Yeah, there might be all sorts of all
(03:30):
sorts of things. So that's the plan, and the way
we're going to do it is we've got a new
might's got a special new rig new gadget set up,
so it's going to be good. So you know, normally
we like to trial wires around and get them all
wrapped around our necks and generally we've gone completely Wi fi.
This is completely wireless now, so treat them with care.
(03:55):
They're wireless headphones, and so we're going to do that
in the morning. So we're going to be out in
the woods, probably a little bit off the beaten track,
because if we go to places that we often do
activities in the saw gets quite compacted, so we reckon that.
If we go to places where people don't normally go
and people don't normally tread, that might be better just
(04:20):
to be aware of that. Is we are off the
beaten tracks, so there might be some trip hazards, some
low hanging branches to poke you in the eye, and
all that sort of stuff. So we're just going to
be a little bit careful in those situations. What I'm
going to say to anyone who hasn't done it yet.
Coats don't really work if you have them open, because
they work by trapping that layer of warm air. And
(04:42):
it is quite chully today, so so do do that
coat up and then after this morning when I have a
couple of hours doing this, and then the plan is
after lunch is go over the fell Brig's under your
route back anyway, isn't it. And we'll a little bit
different in the garden at Fell Brig where the land
(05:03):
is cultivated, so it might be in cultivated grounds might
be a bit different from natural ground that we're kind
of that's what we're kind of thinking about today. And
whether you want to have you look here or go
with the feld, we to have it. It's one of
the fee which cafe people. So that's that's what's feel
I'll leave it uponder that.
Speaker 1 (05:26):
We perhaps give little thought to the soil beneath our feet,
and when it impacts on our consciousness it is the
frequent dismay of muddy boots in the house or the
embarrassment of a long unwashed car. But of course soil
is a vital component of all land ecosystems, and without
it there would be nothing to eat. Considering its prime
(05:48):
importance to agriculture, there is still a surprising amount to
learn about dirt. The scientific understanding of soil was pioneered
in the eighteen hundreds lead life, largely by chemists and
refined by agricultural scientists working in laboratories, greenhouses, and small
field plots. The vital nutrients for plant growth of nitrogen,
(06:11):
phosphorus and potassium or NPK, and the way they cycled
through soil became established, and much emphasis was placed on
retaining soil fertility. This proved to be an elusive gold
and farmers relied on additives, with British farmers importing massive
quantities of bird guano from Peru to support production in
(06:33):
the nineteenth century. The artificial production of fertilizer followed and
became the mainstay behind the industrialized agriculture that produces our
food today. Soil, however, is more than just a medium
for chemical transfer. Darwin had spent many years studying earthworms
following his return from the Voyage of the Beagle, and
(06:55):
his book in eighteen eighty one entitled A Formation of
Vegetable Mold through the Action of Worms, with Observations of
their habits outsold the more famous Origin of species in
its first year. Darwin's work showed how earthworms enriched and
recycled soil and were capable of complex behaviours. Despite this
(07:17):
early science, twentieth century soil research largely ignored the biological
components of soil, and it is only in the last
thirty years or so that this has gained more of
a focus. We know that soil can be a complex
ecosystem in its own right, with a food web comprising
of microscopic fungi, bacteria, nematodes and protists, as well as
(07:38):
a host of larger creatures, adding an enormous invertebrate diversity. Intriguingly,
the emerging field of ecoacoustics is providing a new tool
to analyze life in the soil without the need for
a spade sensitive probe. Microphones placed in soil can detect
the sounds and movements made by soil organisms, and tools
(07:59):
are being dive up to distinguish individual biophonic signals from
background non biological noise. In the future, this technology has
vast potential to improve the management, conservation, and restoration of
soil ecosystems in a cost effective non invasive and efficient manner,
recalling Darwin's experiments where he placed pots of worms on
(08:22):
the piano and played to them, eliciting an excited response.
We will now be listening to the soil with more interest.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
Yeah, Martin making malehold throughout the beginning. That was pretty
fresh to me.
Speaker 3 (08:43):
Can we just.
Speaker 2 (08:46):
Sort of give that a whirl? Can that pop me again?
Speaker 5 (08:58):
I think that's foe.
Speaker 1 (09:51):
The well known idiom don't make a mountain out of
a mole hill dates to Tudor times, but don't mention
this to brown law owners. These little tumps of excavated
soil assume exaggerated proportions in the eyes of some, but
are normally the only evidence of one of our most
wide spread and fascinating mammals. The male moles spend almost
(10:14):
all their lives underground, and as so escape natural predation,
although the damage they can potentially cause to farm machinery
and amenity grass lands such as golf courses, means that
humans are their primary persecutor. Since the withdrawal of the
use of strychnine poison to control moles in two thousand
and six, it was feared that mole populations would increase
(10:37):
but this hasn't been the case. Moles are perfectly adapted
to their subterranean lives, with small, yet stout, cylindrical bodies
covered in black, velvety fur. This smooth moleskin, only superficially
(10:58):
resembling the cotton based fabric, can be smoothed in any direction,
allowing the wearer friction free passage in tight tunnels. Moles
have small but functional eyes, but their most obvious feature
is their enormous front paws, which are covered in extremely
tough skin and adapted for digging. As well as five claws,
(11:20):
the skeleton of the forelimb features an additional bone which
grows from the wrist and enlarges the width of the hand,
functionally serving as an extra finger. The four paws are
twisted perpendicular to the body, which is perfect for propelling
through soil, but leads to an odd gate on the
rare occasion moles venture above ground. In its underground world,
(11:43):
the moles tactile senses are especially well developed, with cells
at the end of their pink snout and sensory hairs
on the tips of their tail. The tail is carried
erect as the mole moves, brushing the upper surface of
the tunnel and functioning as an additional sensor. Moles are
(12:08):
solitary and construct a network of tunnels which they patrol
in search of prey, largely worms in the winter months,
but a wide range of soil living invertebrates at other times.
To excavate a tunnel, the mole braces itself in position
using its smaller hind feet and one of its front paws,
then claws soil away with a working pore, likely alternating
(12:31):
front paws every few strokes. The hind feet serve to
push the soil behind, and periodically the mole will reverse
its direction to push the soil back down the newly
constructed section of tunnel and out to the growing heap. Occasionally,
in damp conditions, excessively large mole hills can occur, which
(12:53):
contain an above ground bedding chamber and protection from flooding.
These supersized hills are known as fortresses. Voracious predators, moles
must consume around half their own body weighting food each
day to survive, met with a variable supply of worms
(13:17):
in the soil. Excess food is bitten at the back
of the head to immobilize it, and then stored until required.
When eating, a captive worm is held down firmly by
the mole's front feet and squeezed to remove as much
soil as possible before consumption. Moles can only survive where
there is a good population of worms, so may provide
(13:39):
some consolation to the gardener as an indicator of good
soil health, as well as an effective controller of invertebrate
lawn enemies such as leather jackets, wire worms, and chafer grubs.
Speaker 2 (14:01):
Okay, so the next little plant is a bit of
an explore obviously. Now what we got here, This stuff
is what's called leaf litter, and so it's where Yeah, basically,
if you gather a bit of a handful of it,
give it a sniff. I'll tell you what. This was
brave enough to give it a sniff. I am gone, lotty,
(14:29):
really natural smell. All it is is leaves breaking down.
It's actually thought that some of the smells in nature
are really good for us. Charlie. Yeah, so some of
the smells in nature, it's things like the essential oils
(14:50):
that are made by trees and they just vaporize in
the air and it actually helps our body quite disease.
And the same I think is true of all sorts
of different natural smells. But what breaks the leaves down
is the question, because obviously you fall off the tree,
you can see where the basically, yeah, it's living things.
(15:12):
Turn the leaf as you can see, or the green
leaf on the tree to the brown leaf on the ground,
to the what is this the leaf litter? Which is, well,
it's it's actually, you know, it's quite it's a sort
of complex mixture of stuff, isn't it's a sort of
quite a nice smell. And if we sort of analyze
(15:33):
it with a microscope, we'd probably find lots of little
living things in there, springtails and little soil organisms. Yeah,
so let's have a look at the leaf litter and
listen to the leaf litter, but also anything we've all
just spread out, having a bit and explore. Just be
a little bit aware. We're not low branches a little
(15:59):
bit worried about they might ping back. There's the occasional
sort of branch that might be hung up a little
bit of so avoid that. The tree at forty five
degrees will avoid that one. And actually, yeah, there's another
tree here that is it's not over yet, but it's
also forty five degrees, so we'll.
Speaker 1 (16:20):
Avoid that as well, navigating our way through the crunchy
layer of leaf litter, avoiding low branches and spiky outcrops
of holly on the way, we tried to think where
we might capture interesting sounds from the soil. Trees at
the edge of ditches left tantalizing rottholes around their revealed roots,
(16:42):
which to our inexperienced imaginations seemed worth further investigation.
Speaker 2 (17:25):
L So this is Martin another Martin, and you might
(18:17):
have seen I did send you actually the link for
the news article Martin. Well, you've explained what he's been
doing himself, but he's been making music. Do you just
explain it?
Speaker 3 (18:30):
Has Martin been listening? Sort of plugging stuff into mushrooms
and stuff that, all that kind of So I do that,
but then I feed the electrical impulses straight into a synthesizer,
and basically what it does is that all those different pulses,
there's different amounts of electricity, different amounts of voltage. Yeah,
(18:52):
there are different amounts of voltage, And what the synthesizer
does is that the higher the voltage, the higher the
notes the picture of the note it makes. So all
these different voltages that are going in and out that
the plant's producing or the mushroom is producing just by
its ordinary biology, they're just producing sound, producing different notes,
(19:12):
so different, I mean, fairly random tunes, but it kind
of makes tunes. So it's like, you know, the mushroom
isn't really making music, but the music is just like
an indication of what's going on of all the electricity
that's going on in the in the mushroom or in
the plant. So it's kind of a fun way just
to look at what's going on inside it, you know.
Speaker 2 (19:33):
But for the for the next book, for the next
hour or so, you know, we've been listening to stuff
in the soil in the woods, an't we We've been
listening to mule hills, We've been listening to mice and
stuff down their holes, all sorts of things. But what
we're going to do now is we're going to go
into the garden and we're going to just find some
(19:54):
different areas to listen to, and maybe the soil in
the garden is cultivated. All the stuff we've been listen
to so far is all wild, but the sword in
the garden is cultivated, and might see what the difference
makes between the sort of natural leaf litter that we're
all holding earlier and in the arm. That was a
bit an explore. Okay, brilliant, Should we go another another
(20:20):
poker belt?
Speaker 1 (20:24):
We found our first listening opportunity after only a few feet.
A small tussock grass sat invitingly in a large pot,
and after inserting the long probe into the soil, we
stood still and listened as one of the young people
run their hands slowly over its spiky fronds. Inspired by this,
(20:54):
I suggested grabbing a nearby watering can and pouring its
contents into the pot, as I thought we might be
able to hear the water drawing through the soil, and
(22:02):
so I do my.
Speaker 4 (22:03):
Next kid do water this year? That's about the jack
of soil sits in the borders. Yeah high to that flight? Yeah? Ok.
Speaker 1 (22:34):
Then, Since Roman times, we've tried to grow fruits and
flowers from warmer climates than our own. In doing so,
gardeners have built structures to shelter tender plants. Many of
(22:55):
the resulting buildings have been preserved by the National Trust
and Gardens. The length and breadth the country oranges are
tender natives of China. And Southeast Asia. Their flavour and
decorative appearance led to them being grown in England from
Elizabeth Rain onwards, initially planted outside and protected over the
(23:16):
winter by temporary covers. However, during the eighteenth century, permanent
buildings like the orangery at Felbrig were constructed with large
south facing windows to provide light to plants that were
grown in movable tubs. In the summer, they would be
placed out in the garden. Up until the early nineteenth century,
(23:38):
orangeries had little in the way of glass in their roofs,
but the arrival of two more succulent fruits, the pineapple
from South America and grapes from the Mediterranean, prompted innovations,
which led to the evolution of what we now recognize
as a greenhouse with a pitched, glazed roof to harvest
the light. Victorian greenhouses began to also feature heating systems
(24:01):
to allow for the growth conditions of plants that required
high temperatures and a moist climate, such as peaches, figs,
and even bananas. Heating was provided by stoves within the
space or cleverly engineered flues transmitting steam or eventually piped
in hot water precursor to modern central heating. The glasshouses
(24:25):
at Felbrigg never featured such advancements, and the banana plants
growing there are for ornamental value rather than providing edible fruit.
With glass becoming both cheaper and available in larger panels
and heating efficiency improving the number in types of greenhouses
burgeon during the nineteenth century, they now emerge tropical glasshouses,
(24:49):
growing palms and all manner of plants hitherto impossible to
grow in northern climes. The restored glasshouse at Clumber is
a great example and the bigger in the Trust's care,
at four hundred and fifty one feet in length. Venturing
(25:13):
into one of these glasshouses in the Feldbrig gardens, we
came across thick, broken stems of banana plants, appearing saturated.
We wondered if the sound of water traveling through these
stems would be similar to the sound of water percolating
through the soil of the tussograss that we'd recorded earlier.
We inserted the probe into the stem and squeezed our
(26:45):
final sound exploration involved syncing the long ecotic probe into
the compacted soil at the base of a fig tree.
About ten feet away. A mini digger was working a
stretch of ground just beyond the garden hedge.
Speaker 5 (27:08):
I oh, but fine, I don't know.
Speaker 4 (27:29):
You do what you do?
Speaker 2 (27:56):
You can hear the pack that I I I lien that.
Speaker 1 (28:50):
Excuse you've been listening to. Your thanks go to the
children and staff at Sidestan's School and to Martin Noble
James at Felwyck Hall. If you'd like to keep listening,
please subscribe to the Home Sound Show through your podcast provider,
(29:13):
or visit the Home Sounds Show on spreaker dot com.
You can also visit homesounds dot org, where you will
find many more opportunities to actively listen and numerous ways
to support and get involved with the Home Sounds project.
Links relating to this episode can be found in the
description Thanks for listening, and welcome home, everybody.
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