A LIFE IN SOUND
This series aims to take listeners on an epic and intimate journey through the natural world, all through the medium of sound and at the same time we want to enable a rare glimpse into the life of a man who recorded everything you’re about to hear, one sound at a time.
Martyn Stewart has spent his lifetime on a mission: to record the natural sounds of our planet. It’s a story that will take us from a council estate in Birmingham England and ultimately take him to every corner of the planet. From Belize to the Arctic Wildlife Refuge, from Denali to the Galapagos, to some of the most inhospitable locations geographically and politically. He will be attacked by lions and crocodiles, arrested in Japan for filming the annual dolphin slaughter and then find himself in long periods of isolation, in remote corners of the world waiting for 30 seconds of a that perfect sound. This is ultimately a love story – dedicated to our natural world and to the people who spend their lives aiming to give it a voice.
A LIFE IN SOUND
Wild Belize - Whispers of the Jungle
Embark on an aural expedition with Martyn Stewart, as we traverse the lush landscapes of Belize, uncovering the rich tapestry of sounds that define this vibrant country. We rapidly escape the buzz of Belize City for the serene seclusion of Pine Mountain Lodge. . Feel the pounding heart of the tropical thunderstorm, and chuckle along with Martyn's quirky mnemonic for the short-billed pigeon's call. Experience firsthand the acoustic challenges he encountered while recording the symphony of birdlife, bat calls in Orange Walk, and the enchanting nighttime frog chorus, all while reflecting on the dangers of bandit-populated roads that necessitate military escorts.
As darkness blankets Central America, we're serenaded by nature's lullaby—the reliable cadence of sunset at six and the harmonious tunes of the melodious blackbird and the light-coloured thrush. This episode is more than just a sensory journey; it's an open invitation to immerse yourself in the environmental splendor of Belize, whether through the stories and sounds shared here or through the continuous echo of nature's symphony online and on social media.
www.thelisteningplanet.com
This is Martin Stewart, with a life in sound from the Listening Planet.
Amanda Hill:Okay, so today we're going to go to a place that's located on the north eastern coast of Central America, bordered by Mexico to the north, guatemala to the west and south and the Caribbean Sea to the east. So, martin, tell me where we are.
Martyn Stewart:We're in Belize today.
Amanda Hill:We're in Belize. We're in Belize, so tell me about. One of the things that I find amazing is it's actually an incredibly small country and we're going to talk about all the places today that I've actually never been. I've been to Belize many times and have been diving um. They've actually got the second largest barrier reef in the world that's true and I've had the privilege.
Amanda Hill:I forgot about that, oh it's just, it is truly, truly beautiful, but I've never, as a result, gone into the mainland, and so today we're going to be talking about the mainland. So tell me about what I don't know, the first impression. I've landed in Belize. I'm Martin Stewart. Where are you going?
Martyn Stewart:The first place I'm going to is to get out of the city, to get out of the coastal areas to get away from what you would go and see and experience.
Martyn Stewart:There's different ways of entertainment in my mind. If you're a water holic or a snorkeller or a diver or, you know, a surfer or whatever it attracts so many people. If you're a, a surfer or whatever it attracts so many people. If you're a nature recordist or whatever, you're just isolated. You're like the Carl Pilkington guy of the world. You're just on your own, and that's the way I love it. So when I went to Belize, we were looking for a place that was off the grid and Ru booked something called the Pine Mountain Lodge Resort, which had no electricity. It had a generator and you relied on solar power. You know to keep things going, but it was out there in the mountains and it was another place. You know to keep things going, but it was out there in the mountains and it was another place. You know that I would. I'd say it's another room in heaven, basically. But when you go into Belize, when you fly into Belize City, it gives you a different kind of angle to it.
Martyn Stewart:I thought when we first arrived in Belize City that I'd made a big mistake because there was litter and loads of people and lots of noise and a lot of trash everywhere, and it wasn't until you're probably five miles away from Belize City that you started to realize, wow, this is what I wanted to do.
Amanda Hill:So, um, belize, the and I know that you record. You recorded on the mountain Pine Ridge the most incredible thunderstorm.
Martyn Stewart:Oh, incredible, incredible. When you encounter there's challenges that are not really evident, as today. There's a way you record sound and thunderclaps and big bangs and screams. You have to calibrate your level indicator so that it doesn't saturate the sound. If you're recording something like a thunderstorm, your calibration has to be dead right. But today they introduced the 32-bit float, which is a setting on recorders, now that you can basically record any bangs without saturating and peaking your recording itself.
Martyn Stewart:But I didn't have that ability when I first went into Belize, so you had to set your levels to the way that I've always set them, calibrated, you know, the way that I knew would record these magnificent bangs and crashes. So it was probably a couple of days into being on the Pine Ridge Mountain that this storm came through and the trees were blowing, the rain started coming down and then this enormous bang and crash that kind of puts your hair on end and just incredible to be able to experience something so wonderful and out of this world. I think belize thunderstorms are incredible, you know. They're on a par with a lot of the best ones that I've done.
Amanda Hill:I think the most magnificent thunderstorm is when we were in the Pine Ridge Mountains. And then tell me about the. I love the sand thunder. I love it. It makes me feel so secure and cosy and warm. But I know one of the other things that you love about belize are the different birds, and I also know that you really like mnemonics, martin. So tell me about one of the birds we're going to encounter today and it's not mnemonic, I can't say it now it's hard to say mnemonic.
Martyn Stewart:I didn't know what a mnemonic was until I came into the states and they use mnemonics for bird songs so that you can remember them. So I make my own up and when I'm in a place like belize or any other country that you know, I'm first there. I think, okay, that guy's saying something, so I'll remember that, and this guy's saying this, so I'll remember that. And this guy's saying this thing, so I'll remember that. But there was a short-billed pigeon that would say I'm over here, I'm over here.
Amanda Hill:I'm over here.
Martyn Stewart:And it's repetitive and it just goes on and on and on, and you're talking to yourself, basically, and then you're answering it back in your head I know you're over there, I and you're talking to yourself, basically, and then you're saying you're answering it back in your head I know you're over there, I know you're over there, you're over there, so it's.
Amanda Hill:It's just my just way of torturing myself, that's all tell me about some of the other favorite bird characters that you recorded in belize and where were you when you? Recorded in Belize and where were you when you recorded them? I need to know place as well as species.
Martyn Stewart:Well, I was in the north of Round Orange Walk where I'd gone up to do bats as well, so we did a lot of bat recordings, which is something else. It's kind of a.
Amanda Hill:I don't associate bats with Belize.
Martyn Stewart:Oh yeah, but there's tons of species of bats in Belize, as there is in most of central um America.
Amanda Hill:I'll tell you so where did you go to record bats? How do you find them?
Martyn Stewart:all over Belize to do bats. Um, I'll give you an introduction into bats. So my goal in life was to record every sound that was possible that the critters emitted. So I had a slogan recording the world one species at a time. So it wasn't just birds. I loved insects, amphibians, birds, mammals, marine life, all of that, Anything to do with nature that emitted sound I wanted to record. So when I set out to record all the birds of the world, I found out because I'm not a birder. A lot of people say I'm a birder but I'm not a birder. I don't identify birds. I hear their sounds and I record their sounds and tie the two together. But if I see a bird, you know we've talked about being colorblind- it doesn't help, you're colorblind, I can't identify shit.
Martyn Stewart:So birds I found out there were something like 10,000 species of birds in the world and in my lifetime I've got through to probably 35, maybe 4,000 species of birds, probably in the middle between 3,000 and 3,500, 4,000. And when I was asked by a guy up in Seattle why don't I record bats as well? Oh, my God, you know how many bats. Because they're flying, there's got to be 5,000 000 bat species as well. And how do you identify something that's flying at night? That's black, you know, you don't see it. So I found out there's a thousand bat species in the world. Uh, wow, thousand, that's, that's doable. Then you realize how hard it is to be able to record bats and identify them. So to date I've recorded about 325 species of bats. That's unbelievable.
Martyn Stewart:So all the bats in North America are recorded and megabats. There are microbats and megabats. There are the vampire bats, there are the bats, you know, that are down in Belize and Costa Rica, which we spoke about, but the micro bats there's probably quite a few species in Belize. So the way you do it is you find a body of water and you pull out these mist nets, so the nets are stretched across from pole to pole with the idea of catching the bats. They fly into the nets and then you capture the bats and you identify the bats.
Martyn Stewart:You get a biologist or a bat specialist that will glue a bungee cord on the back of the bat and let it fly along a zipline 20-30 times and as it's flying back and forward along the zipline, it's emitting these sounds, these high frequency sounds, and you have a bat detector to to record these species. You, you can't do it with just a microphone. You have to have a bat detector to to record these species. You, you can't do it with just a microphone. You have to have a bat detector. And I bought this really expensive bat bat detector so I could do this. The other thing about recording bats is you had to have rabies jabs, so you you had to go through process of inoculation and become immune to rabies.
Martyn Stewart:So I went to all that trouble um to go and record bats.
Martyn Stewart:So I recorded these amazing bats up in orange walk, um a lot of these micro bats in the pine ridge mountains. There were bat species down there which I recorded. So once you've recorded the bats along the zip line with the bungee cord, the next time you base the sounds on what you've already recorded and you just add them to the database so that you don't have to always put out a misnet to catch them. So the system is called heterodyne, so that you're heterodyne in the sounds that are inaudible to us, so that you're heterodyne in the sounds that are inaudible to us, so that you bring the, the sound signature, down to a frequency that you understand and they sound like squeaks. They have a definite squeak about them.
Amanda Hill:If you listen to a lot of and can you tell much of the difference between one squeak of a bat versus another squeak of a bat you can do with um with.
Martyn Stewart:Um is another squeak of a bat you can do with spectrogram analysis. So they have like a call and a tail. But I did a lot of bats these, and they were really, really interesting. And a lot of frogs, a lot of night stuff. I love the sounds of the night. There's that kind of insect chorus which kind of gives you that pleasing sound and feeling of tranquility. It's just unbelievable. And insects have different sound signatures too.
Amanda Hill:Where are you when you're recording insects? Which part of Belize is it All?
Martyn Stewart:over Belize, all over Belize. You know that's the good thing about tropical Central America, that you have an abundance of cicadas and other different critters, you know. And then the owls they accompany the insects and you have the screech owls, you have the muffled owls, you have vermiculated screech owls. You have the dawn, when it's almost like when the dawn comes, all the night crowd go. Ok, mate, I'm going to bed now. I've been working all night, I've set the tone for you. And they pull in the moon and they pull the stars in, and then all the morning crowd are rolling out. You know the clouds and the blue sky, and then they get their coat off and they blow their nose and they gargle and they start to bring the morning in and so who's in the morning crowd martin?
Martyn Stewart:the morning crowd, you normally get woke up where's the chakalaka?
Martyn Stewart:the chakalakas are all over the place. The chakalaka start Chakalaka, chakalaka, were they in the morning? In the morning they make such a din they drown out. One Chakalaka will start the call, and then Mrs Chakalaka, two streets up the road, is going to start shouting back, and then Ari Chakalaka starts going off and Dick Chakalaka starts going off and dick chakalaka is going, and then you've got tom, dick, arry, george tom, you know, dave chakalakas, and they're all chakalaking everywhere. They're just the most amazing sound. And when all the chakalakas are calmed down, then it's almost like the stage is set for birds, like the melodious blackbird.
Amanda Hill:How do you like the melodious blackbird? How do you like the melodious blackbird?
Martyn Stewart:Well, it's almost going back to my kid days, you know, when the blackbird singing in the woods in Birmingham, england. They have that definite kind of song about them. You know it's a blackbird, you know it's a thrush family. So the melodious blackbird is kind of like upmarket. The melodious blackbird has the suit on, you know, he has the night gear on Tuxedo and he has the dickie bow and he's going to give you a proper performance and he'll give you a beautiful serenade. So that is beautiful. And then you have the clay-coloured robin. It was the clay-coloured robin, it was the clay-coloured robin when I was there, and then I think the ornithologists have turned the name over to the clay-coloured thrush. But you have.
Amanda Hill:And what about the hummingbirds?
Martyn Stewart:Hummingbirds all over the place chipping away in the wingbeats. You know, wherever there's flowers and stuff, there's an abundance of hummingbirds. There's um yellow-billed, um yellow-bellied elenas. There's social fly catchers. The social fly catcher as well, when it, when that starts to call, has that mnemonic about it. It it's that he's almost like my brother Alan. You know that monotone. You need the melodious blackbird to stand next to him and say Oi, mate, cheer up, nothing's that bad.
Amanda Hill:So tell me about the different regions that you went to in Belize. So we've done Mountain Pine Ridge, where you had that incredible thunderstorm, but I know you also went to the Columbia Forest Reserve down south the Rio. Bravo. Conservation area. Tell me about the different places that you've been to so we did the Pine Mountain Ridge area.
Martyn Stewart:I put two audio boxes out there and recorded there every day. We went south as well, to Guatemala itself, and you had to have an army, some army people, to assist you on the way, to accompany you down, because it's quite a dangerous road. There's bandits come out and they'll rob.
Amanda Hill:Why did you want to go down there then, martin?
Martyn Stewart:Because I knew there were a lot of aura, pendulas and teacums and different species of birds down there, lots of different parrots, and it was a quiet area and I thought you know we'll get some different species of birds. Because you're going more or less through, you're on the border of Guatemala. I've only just flirted really with Guatemala because I was always a little bit scared of going in to Guatemala because of the.
Amanda Hill:You're the only person I know that's had army people accompany him to go.
Martyn Stewart:Well, it wasn't just me. There was a whole bunch of cars that were going down and okay it's like a chichen itza type place, you know and again, I'm not really good at names, I'm bad on there, but the um there was placed down by.
Martyn Stewart:Uh, there was a lake down down there on borders, something like Sarston National Park. There was another place there which I was looking for different bird species but kind of got the same thing. But the Columbia Forest Reserve had a lot of different sounds again, different soundscapes, different foliage as well to reflect the sounds off. You always find that when you get tropical foliage a lot of the foliage is glossy. You know it's that reflectiveness about it, so sound reflects and carries in different ways. And when you buy water as well, you get reflective sounds off water. And I got close to going, going north, I think we went through Bella Vista and that way I did a recording of the ocean because every time you go to a country that has ocean around it and stuff I like to try and record the waves and stuff about it because again, it has a different sound signature to everywhere else.
Amanda Hill:Ocean has different density, different salt content and so some waves and you hear that difference in the sound you hear it.
Martyn Stewart:Some waves are heavier than others, some are light, some drop down, but Belize is just completely interesting. And if you go further down, you're bordering around Honduras, which I haven't gone into recorded, but one of those places where I'd like to. You know, if I got the chance to go to Belize again, I'd like to go do the south of Belize more so and then go into Honduras.
Amanda Hill:Can you go to the Rio Bravo Conservation Area? Where's that?
Martyn Stewart:That's south of Belize City.
Amanda Hill:So can we have a moment, Martin, to give some love to the frogs.
Martyn Stewart:Oh, we've got to do the frogs.
Amanda Hill:Frogs don't get much love.
Martyn Stewart:Oh, they get lots of love from me. I love frogs.
Amanda Hill:I know they do Tell me about there are quite a few species of frogs in Belize and I've got a vocal. I do Tell me about there are quite a few species of frogs in Belize and are quite vocal, I believe. Do you want to introduce some of your frog friends?
Martyn Stewart:Well, the frogs around Costa Rica and Belize, nicaragua are mostly. They're frogs and not toads. So there's a lot of species in the poison dart frog family and they just have this incredible vocalization about them. There's a unique call about frogs, and frogs tell me how healthy the environment is. I always say sound is the barometer of the planet. I also say the health of the river is the dipper. If the dipper is present, you've got a healthy river. But you've got a healthy environment if you've got frogs around and there's an abundance of frog calls when the rain season comes. In Costa Rica the frog chorus is nothing like bird sound. You know it's not like a dawn or an evening chorus, it's just unique and frogs chorus so that they confuse the predators. If they're all calling together and say you have a predator like an owl that wants to go and eat some frogs, it can't signal a man.
Martyn Stewart:You know it can't identify where the call's coming from because it's all over the place. But once you break into their habitat, a frog will stop calling when the hell's the frogs gone? And then a frog will go frog, frog, see if it's okay, and then he'll say it again, frog, frog. And then another frog will go see if it's okay, and then he'll say it again. And then another frog will go and the other frog will go and it's almost like is he gone yet? I don't know. Do you think he's still here? I think so. Why aren't the others calling because they think he's still here? I think so. Why aren't the others calling Because they think he's still here? But I think he's gone now. Okay, do you want to go first? I'll go first, okay. And then everyone starts calling because they know it's safe. I mean, how cool is that? We install alarms and shit. We install alarms around our front.
Amanda Hill:You know, nature has frogs yeah, yeah, I love that they've got frogs. I want to. I want to. This is a quick dive. Yeah, I love that They've got frogs. I want to. This is a quick dive into beliefs. I want to end with what I think is one of my also favourite sounds, which is the night time. So tell me what the night? We spend a lot of time, martin, talking about the dawn chorus, because that's what we always associate with so much incredible life and biodiversity. But paint the picture for me of the. It's six o'clock and what am I going to start to eat? What's going to put me to sleep in Belize?
Martyn Stewart:Well knowing you, probably two glasses of Pinot Grigio.
Amanda Hill:As long as I have some fries with it, then I'm okay.
Martyn Stewart:The thing about Central America the clock, the sun. Whether it's spring, summer, autumn, winter, six o'clock is the end of the day. The sun you've got short days. When you're in the Northern Hemisphere, you've got short days. When you're in the northern hemisphere you've got 24 hours light. If you're up in the Arctic, if you're down south in the summer, you've got the same thing. If you go into your place, where you are up in Portland, night times in the summer you can go up to 10 o'clock when you've still got light.
Martyn Stewart:But there's no compromise in Central America. Six o'clock, okay, let's get this crowd out now. And at 10 to 6 you get the cicadas come in and then they start to intensify their calls and all the insects start to call. And once the sun's gone down, the temperature just changes, fluctuates just that little bit. So the insect chorus gets louder and then, as it cools down, it starts to soften out the common parakeet which will have that unique call about it, then the owl choruses and then the frogs. So through the night you've got these guys. It's like the night watchman. Oh, oh oh.
Martyn Stewart:Until someone breaks up. You know, when we talked earlier on about the blackbird, my mate that I learnt in the forest. When the blackbird came in the forest, I knew someone. I knew someone come in the forest when the blackbird would make an alarm.
Martyn Stewart:Well, you learn these things, like the critters everywhere you go. They all have that same ability to. They're telling each other basically fucking hell, something's going on over here, need to shut the fuck up, need to keep it quiet. They're telling you that something's strange in their environment, and not just them, but other animals use those sounds as a precaution. They use it for their ability to ward off any kind of threats that they find in the night. Remember, you have a lot of nocturnal animals that walk in the forest. You have, like the jaguar, you've got the cooties, I think they're called.
Martyn Stewart:They're like the equivalent of the raccoon in North America, and they're looking for everything, so a frog will sense that they're present because they eat the frogs, although some of the poison dart frogs are pretty, so there's a clever thing as well. They also have different colors about them, and the redder they are, the more poisonous they're going to be and then of course you got snakes.
Amanda Hill:You got snakes parading, so do you have sound recording only?
Martyn Stewart:rattlesnakes my because they don't otherwise make much your brother, your dad, my brother john yeah, when I was young, locked me in the reptile house with Alan when I was a kid and frightened the shit out of. I was always petrified about snakes and, of course, when I met Ru, we went down to Queensland, australia which we'll do as another kind of podcast and I said are there any snakes in here? And she said you're not going to see any snakes. And within 10 minutes we're on the walk. There's a bloody poison snake crawled up onto the chair.
Amanda Hill:That always happens do you have any favourite? So if I close this off, if I was going to go back to Belize and finally persuade my scuba diving family to now go into the mountains or the rainforest, where should I go?
Martyn Stewart:Oh, you'd have to go to the Pine Ridge Mountains, because it's not the place that anybody would have on their list. You'd have to go there and experience that and, with the heat and the humidity, when you're up in a high altitude it's cooler and the air is breathable and it's beautiful. But it's just a wonderful place and you've got acres and acres of land up there to walk freely and there's no roads. The only roads are to the lodges and then that's it. You're just on your own.
Amanda Hill:And if you closed your eyes, martin, what are the sounds that you'd be hearing that would make you know that you're now in Belize? So I haven't let you open your eyes, you've just your eyes have got to be closed. What's very specific to Belize for you?
Martyn Stewart:The morning choruses of the melodious blackbird and the light-coloured thrush.
Amanda Hill:OK, let's close with them. Thank you, Martin.
Martyn Stewart:You've just experienced another journey on the Listening planet podcast. Dive deeper into the world of natural sounds by connecting with us online. Visit our website or follow us on social media. Let the symphony of nature surround you wherever you go. Happy listening.
