Phytophony: Croft Pascoe Pool Goonhilly Downs

Under the bright midday sun at Croft Pascoe Pool, what appears to be a quiet, shallow body of water reveals a hidden acoustic world when listened to from within. Submerged hydrophones and seaphone (underwater geophone) capture a delicate fizzing texture produced by aquatic plants actively photosynthesising. As sunlight drives their metabolism, tiny oxygen bubbles form on leaves and stems and rise through the water, creating a constant stream of microscopic clicks and bursts.

Alongside these sounds are faint internal movements within the plants themselves. As water travels through their vascular tissues, small pressure shifts and cavitations create subtle pulses the internal hydraulics of plant life made audible. Aquatic insects move through the submerged vegetation, brushing stems and producing fine vibrations by stridulation that weave through the soundscape.

Croft Pascoe Pool is one of the Lizard’s ephemeral freshwater habitats; seasonal ponds that fill during winter rains and slowly dry through the summer. The Lizard is the only place in the UK designated for the rare European habitat known as Mediterranean Temporary Ponds. Their temporary nature supports rare red data book annual plants such as Yellow Centaury, Pygmy Rush and Three-lobed Water Crowfoot, while amphibians use the fish-free waters to spawn without the risk of predators.

Listening closely, the pool becomes more than an seemingly silent and inert freshwater pool in the heathland. It reveals the metabolic life of plants, sunlight turning into oxygen, and a fleeting seasonal ecosystem alive with microscopic sound, a unique and constantly changing more than human soundscape.