Four times I walked the path through the woods between the Emma Lake Art Camp and Fern's Grocery at Murray Point last June. For fun, I had my Sony mp3 recorder running. The result is four tracks averaging 11-12 minutes each--mainly footsteps and birdcalls.
In case you listen to these tracks, using the link to the right, you may want to know that the "Brando" talk refers to the last in a series of poems set in Stan Still's cabin at Emma Lake. Everyone at the party--one of my grandfathers, Virginia Woolf, Robert Kroetsch, Jack Kerouac, a monk from St. Peter's Abbey, Ella Fitzgerald and Marlon Brando--was alive at least between 1927 and 1930. On the day of the four walks I'm musing about how to make the Brando piece (which I'll record and add to the site later).
If you're a writer friend who likes birds, you'll hear your name mentioned during the third and fourth walks.
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Compass
- Gerald Hill
- Gerald Hill's 7th poetry collection, Crooked at the Far End, appeared in 2020, from Radiant Press.
Compass
3 comments:
Ha! The three biggest loud-mouths are
Tennessee Warbler
http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Tennessee_Warbler/id
Red-eyed Vireo (goes good with those red eyes)
http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Red-eyed_Vireo/id
Ovenbird
http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/ovenbird/id
Some others heard over and between words and footsteps on the four tracks and in no particular order: Cape May Warbler, Yellow Warbler, American Redstart, Black-and-white Warbler, Black-throated Green Warbler, Yellow-rumped Warbler, Ruby-crowned Kinglet, Pine Siskin, Blue Jay, Chipping Sparrow, Swainson's Thrush, White-throated Sparrow, Western Tanager.
Those were fun walks!
Thanks for that list, Brenda. I think you heard a loon too.
Right, a loon! Of course I might have misheard in some cases or overlooked the obvious, perhaps distracted by words or how the sound hit the recorder. Recordings don't preserve the direction/whereabouts of sound and in most cases you were moving. So there were moments when I said - wait, was that a Palm Warbler? Was that a Blackpoll Warbler? But you kept going.
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