A cold Late Winter Wilderness © wind drifts through the trees as the sun peeks over the horizon. Frost in the trunks and branches crunches and pops as the trees flex.
Winter in the forest is a quiet time. Most of the birds have migrated south and most of the animals are fast asleep in their winter hibernation. Lakes, ponds, and small streams are frozen, and a thick blanket of snowcover acts as a sound absorbent. As the days get longer and a little warmer in early March, subtle changes occur in the early morning forest soundscape. The winter birds become a more vocal.
In Late Winter Wilderness ©, as the rising sun illuminates the tops of the trees, Nuthatches chant and Hairy Woodpeckers drill. Red squirrels become more mobile after a crust forms on the deep snow. Their warning chatter becomes more frequent as they stray into each other's territory. An occasional Goldfinch sings. The wind chills.
A Minimalist Recording
This is a very quiet minimalist recording, and the restless air leaves its own background noise imprint. The longer version has quieter sections, more wind, and long repetitive nuthatch chants that are not included in the short version. Listening with headphones is recommended.
Late Winter Wilderness © is for those who enjoy a minimalist soundscape which has long stretches of low volume inactivity. The long version accurately represents the activities of wind and animals at daybreak in late winter. There is an audible hiss in the recording produced by the recording equipment. It has been encoded at 192 bps for better audio quality.