Ever since I first heard the track “Vultures” by Chris Watson from his album “Outside The Circle Of Fire” (1998, Touch), my desire has been to make a recording of nature at such close range. To be more precise: my desire was to record the kind of things we don’t have access to in everyday life, which would open the ears of the audience to sonic oddities and encourage them to seek out sonic sensations themselves, including in their surroundings.
Unlike Chris Watson, I did not have the opportunity to go to the African savannah. So I went to one of my most favourite area the Orawsko-Nowotarskie Peatlands Natura 2000 site. This is an area of peat bogs, wet meadows pastures and boggy forests stretching along the Podhale-Orava border and the Slovak-Polish border, located mainly in the Czarny Dunajec municipality. Only one peat bog from this complex is protected (Bór na Czerwonem Reserve in Nowy Targ). It has been postulated for many years that the Orawsko-Nowotarskie Peatlands should be protected in the form of the Orava National Park.
On that day I went to a swampy forest near the village of Podczerwone to try record the black grouse, which are very rare in this area. At one point I noticed a large group of ravens circling in the sky. I decided to head in that direction, as I found the raven sounds to be some of the most beautiful among native songbirds. When I approached the place that aroused the birds’ interest, I found a sad and outrageous sight: in a grove opposite a freshly erected hunting pulpit, I found two mounds made of animal bodies: 4 fallow deer, 2 goats, fragments of sheep and cows, as well as food waste. I knew that this was no ordinary baiting ground, such as there are unfortunately many here, which is intended for deer, roe deer or wild boar. This was baiting for the large predators that stay here when travelling between the Western Beskids and the Tatras. For protected bears and wolves.
I decided to turn my anger at the find into action. I made photographic documentation, marked the place on the map and immediately notified the authorithies: Forest Guard, Sanitary Inspection, District Veterinarian, Municipality of Czarny Dunajec.
Meanwhile, I also decided that I might be able to record the local ravens feeding on the carcasses. Of course, the birds at the sight of me scattered to the surrounding trees, from where they watched me closely. So I decided to bury the recorder with the microphones right next to the carrion. I returned to the site 24 hours later. The equipment smelled of death inflicted on the unfortunate animals only to lure more animals to be killed.
From the material I collected, I selected about an hour of recordings of very close encounters with ravens. I recorded raven breaths, fluttering wings, close calls, scenes of love and fights. In addition to ravens, the death piles were also visited by other animals: foxes, cuckoos, tits. Larks, wood pipits and robins can be heard in the background. Very seldom does the anthropophony sound: a plane flies by or a siren wails. The cold May wind watches over everything.
The album ‘Ravens’ consists of five tracks. Tracks 1, 2 and 3 were recorded in Podczerwone near a predator hunting ground in May 2025. Tracks 3 and 4 were recorded near the Przybojec Bog in Chocholow in March 2025. Tracks 2 and 4 are preludes to the recordings from an abrasive perspective. Recordings 2 and 4 are also more traditional recordings where ravens can be heard cawing along their flight paths, as well as finches, wrens, human voices and sounds of the nearby countryside.
Not long after finding the bait, I went to the same spot again. The pulpit had been dismantled and the carcasses cleaned up. I don’t know whether this is the result of an administrative sanction or an attempt to hide the evidence of the crime.
The album was released in gatefold packaging on a 32GB microSD card. The physical edition includes a raven’s feather collected at the scene where the recordings were made
Tracklist:
1. Kruki, lisy i bogatki żerują razem w Podczerwonem 21:38
2. Kruki wieczorem lecą nad Przybojcem, rozlega się syrena remizy, śpiewa rudzik 06:46
3. Kruki żerują na nielegalnym nęcisku w Podczerwonem 26:47
4. Kruki przelatują nad okrajkiem torfowiska Przybojec w Chochołowie 11:49
5. Kruki kończą posiłek 20:48
Maciej Wirmański, „Kruki”, Szara Reneta, Taśma Pięćdziesiąta Piąta, 2025