In the course of exploring the western border of the Tatra Mountains lying close to the TANAP and TPN, I finally reached the picturesque Molkówka Glade. This is a place I have been exploring since the winter of 2024, and this year I started recording the local phenomena to a greater extent. First of all, I note the contrast in sound atmosphere between the Chochołowska Valley, which is very close by, and Molkówka. Paradoxically, the Chocholowska Valley, although located in a national park, is devastated by extensive tourism and is very noisy. Being away from Chochołowska, one can hear crowds of people, cars driving to the numerous car parks, mechanical music from stalls with small catering and souvenirs, the engine of a farm tractor converted into a train. Molkówka, on the other hand, where animals used to graze, and which today is the destination of a few cyclists, hikers and hunters (there are hunting pulpits on the edge of the glade, 200 metres in a straight line from the national park), as well as a place where skidding and felling is carried out, is a much quieter and better place to contemplate the sounds.
The northern boundary of the glade is marked by a forest growing on the rocky Siwiańskie Turnie. The national park boundary also runs through the Turnie. Wandering along the boundary, I came across a magnificent fir tree that had been destroyed by gusty winds. There is a saying that ‘the tree was broken like a matchstick’, here I would say that the tree broke into matchsticks. Or, more precisely, pieces of wood of various sizes that adorned the surroundings of the trunk protruding above the surroundings or hanging on threads of fibre. Barely a gentle gust stirred the tree to play, that ghostly ready-made Aeolian harp.
I decided this was the perfect place to record. I might not record the fauna on my bucket list (Molkówka is an important ecological corridor for many mammals, including wolves and bears), but I would record an interesting soundscape of wind, crackling wood and the nearby Chochołowski Brook. It worked out well, as the wind started to gently pick up that night. The first part of the recording is dominated by the steady hum of the Chocholowski Stream, (more heard in the left channel) and the crackle of wood (more in the right channel). Above it all, however, a steady spring breeze.
In the first part of the recording, the dynamics of the events are exactly as I described them above. The sounds of anthropophony are practically inaudible for most of the recording. A skilled ear will perhaps catch the gunshots of the hunters (I will hint that one of the gunshots is heard at 3:23). The first obvious biophonic sounds do not appear until 9:11, when a Eurasian woodcock croaks. After some time, this sound returns and remains constant for a long time. An interesting event takes place at 19:26 minutes of the recording: an animal runs up to the microphones, after which the rustling stops. The bird radio starts broadcasting about halfway through the recording, when a robin calls out (23:54). The bird’s first song rouses further voices in the glade, in the ravine, on the ridge and in the forest. It is soon joined by a blackbird. Nothing for a long time, but suddenly a cuckoo flies into hearing range somewhere from the direction of Magura Witowska. After the cuckoo wakes up the coal tit, whose relentless song can be heard loudly and continuously, followed quickly by a wren. Next, the goldcrest enters the competition, while the cuckoo falls silent. It thickens when the song thrush joins in, and the idyll is interrupted by a plane.
At this point I make the cut.
Recorded at dawn (3:50-5:00) on 2 May 2025 at Siwiańskie Turnie in the Western Tatras.
No cutting or overdubbing was applied.
Recorded using: Usi Pro and Zoom F3
Album cover picture:
Wiosna na Huluszczyźnie