Winter Solstice Frog Soundscape

The 21st of June 2026 was the Winter Solstice in the Southern Hemisphere: the longest night and the shortest day of a year that was, in so many ways, a deeply troubled, difficult, and painful year for millions of people – and for so many other species, besides our own – all around this one planetary world.

Especially to witness, experience and celebrate this annual geo-astronomical event – ‘the return of the light’, as it has been known for millennia – I had driven several hours through the night, to wander quietly and contemplatively between several locations at a place that has long been and still is of great local importance, from the perspectives not only of pre-colonial but also of post-colonial time: the Kurangk/Coorong lagoon, particularly in the region that was once the home country of the Tanganekald clan, a tribe of the Ngarrindjeri nation.

Of the recordings made during the night and morning of the Winter Solstice, this soundscape, near Pelican Point, in its minimal simplicity, was perhaps the most immersive and energetic. It’s a binaural recording; therefore, listening with good quality headphones is keenly recommended.

The night was cold, far below dew point, with maximal humidity and drenching condensation that left every possible surface glazed with water. The moonless night sky was perfectly clear and unfathomably dark. The atmosphere was absolutely calm and still, revealing the Milky Way spanning the whole sky from west to east in brilliantly focussed and unwavering detail.

A myriad frogs (mostly South Australian Tree Frogs (Rawlinsonia calliscelis)) were calling, singing – continuously, relentlessly, tirelessly – from the freshwater lakes and pools adjacent to the Kurangk/Coorong lagoon. Behind and beyond the voices of the nearby frogs can be heard the muted roar of the Southern Ocean – its shoreline stretching from east to west for 194 kilometres (121 miles) on the far side of the tall dunes that separate the sea from the inland lagoon – like an endless, inexhaustible exhalation.

The meaning of the moment is up to the listener, their own experience of it, their own understanding and interpretation of it. No perceptual encounter with Nature is a mere ‘given’. If it were, if it could be, then perhaps our planet would not today be experiencing the stress, suffering and danger that it is, in fact, without doubt, experiencing.