Platypus Pool Quietude

This is a very quiet, minimal recording, and would best be appreciated, understood and enjoyed if listened to with good quality headphones or speakers in a quiet space, or at a quiet time, with little or no extraneous noise penetrating the natural original quietude of the soundscape. (This is a very difficult thing to ask, to be sure; but what is the value of listening to a recording of quietude if the quietude cannot be heard and felt because of environing outside noise?)

This recording was made at midday while sitting beside a deep pool of water formed by a rivulet flowing into the nearby Styx River (near the Big Tree Forest Reserve, in the Styx Valley, Tasmania). The riverside was densely moist and green with moss, soft tree ferns, sassafras, myrtle and dogwood. Farther up the slope, majestic old mountain ash trees (Eucalyptus regnans) towered tall.

It was lightly raining; raindrops sifted through the forest canopy and giant tree ferns, sprinkling upon the surface of the pool, making very delicate sounds that could clearly be heard, even though the perpetual sighing hush of the Styx River filled the forest space. At the floor of the forest, the air was still; high above, a wandering breeze brushed the crests of the tall eucalypts. Here and there, Grey Shrike-thrushes were calling to one another. At that moment, I didn’t know of the pool’s secretive inhabitant. When I returned to sit by the pool again in the evening, I witnessed the platypus gliding silently and elegantly beneath the surface of the water.

This unprocessed recording was made with respect in the land of the Palawa people of lutruwita/Tasmania. May these priceless forests remain perpetually protected. Profound gratitude and honour to the many people – from all over the world – who have struggled tirelessly for decades against both government and business to protect these forests from logging – and must always continue to do so!