74 Night shallowing in a Suffolk Wood – listen with headphones (sleep safe)

Full Episode description

This is part eight, 3am to 4am of the twelve hour Suffolk Wood recording. We made it almost four years ago on a balmy summer night in August by leaving a pair of sensitive microphones spaced out like ears, to record non-stop in the heart of an uninhabited rural wood in Dedham Vale. It was the first overnight recording we ever made, and we had no idea what the microphones would hear. 

The wood is situated about three miles from the A12. In the evening, when we set things up, the noise of the road was barely audible, but in the dead of night, air cooled and still, the wood becomes transparent to the A12’s pale grey drift that illuminates the landscape beyond, like aural moonlight. 

Close by, between the tree trunks and hidden amongst the ankle-deep leaf litter, are the dark bush crickets. They chirrup pleasantly through the whole night, stridulating their resonant bodies marking out the passage of time in slow, natural seconds. Owls haunt the empty voids, as do other strange and almost unearthly noises. The things we are unused to hearing, the things we may call dream-like.

Miniature deer called muntjac inhabit this ground, as do badgers, rabbits and other smaller mammals. Unworried by the microphones they move about with light footsteps on the dry leaves, so close you could almost touch them. A precious sound-view onto their world that our very presence would normally preclude.

There are so many surrounding sounds, from bits of dead wood dropping from the tree tops, to distant geese and ducks flying their nocturnal routes. There are also the planes. Passenger planes, possibly also military, emerging as soft rumbles from over the horizon, then passing in lazy arcs overhead, before dissolving away into the world beyond. For them this land below doesn’t exist. 

And just over a mile away, from over the fields, the golden toned bell of St Mary’s parish church strikes the hour. Bookends, to the slow passing of time in this peaceful rural wood. 

** We’ve marked this episode *sleep safe* as it is quiet with no louder noises. However, you may find the snuffling of animals and snapping of twigs keeps you awake. So only listen during the day if this the case!

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To listen to the other episodes in this series and how the sound of the wood changes over time, visit the Radio Lento blog which lists them all in one handy place.

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