  Douglas Quin's Sounds of the Poles
(Click the Sound icons below to listen)
Doug has participated in the National Science Foundation's Antarctic Artist and Writer's Program where he spent time in Antarctica creating soundtracks and CDs of the continent's soundscape. Some of the sounds he recorded include Weddell seals, penguins, icebergs calving, wind, and "atmospheric whistlers from space." "Music and the origins of music have always been a passion of mine, says Quin. "How we relate to our 'sounding world' is about music and natural sound and how they weave together in our lives. The view was twofold--making music and engaging people phonically with the world."
Photograph by Jim Barker
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Adelie Penguins
This recording is of an Adelie penguin colony on Torgersen Island, at the entrance to Arthur Harbor near Palmer Station on Anvers Island along the Antarctic Peninsula. The winter solstice has just passed and the colony is active with young chicks creching. Both male and female parent Adelies come and go, bringing food to the chicks, taking turns tending the nest, which is a small raised ring of pebbles. Listeners can hear ecstatic display calls, the pleading whistles of hungry young and the aggressive squawking, as adult penguins attempt to steal stones from neighbouring nests to line their own.
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Calving Glacier Ice
Brash ice swirls slowly with the tides of Arthur Harbor near Palmer Station as sections of a glacier face calve and crash into the water, raining ice and water down in their wake.
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Elephant Seals
This recording of elephant seals hauled out and resting was made at "Elephant Alley" near Old Palmer Station, not far from the present research facility. Several seals lie close to one another, breathing deeply and occasionally producing their very characteristic snorting as they adjust their positions.
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Emperor Penguins
Flying by helicopter out to the sea ice edge in McMurdo Sound, we set down briefly to film and record. Our presence attracted a group of wandering emperor penguins. They approached to within a few inches of the microphones, curious and inquisitive. Listeners can hear their footsteps, as they parade by, the characteristic trumpeting call and the "sneezing" sound as they clear salt and water from their beaks.
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Weddell Seals
This recording of Weddell seal mothers and pups calling back and forth was made along a network of tidal cracks in the fast ice surrounding Big Razorback Island. The young are sometimes no more than a week or two old and are learning how to enter and haul themselves out of the water in fissures in the ice. The mothers are heard coaxing and coaching as the pups struggle.
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