Location: The Bernard Field Station is a natural laboratory located on the Northest part of the 5C campus that serves as a natural environment in which students can conduct experiments in. It is a piece of land that has been left mostly untouched and is isolated from any outside disturbances which replicates the natural ecology of California. Since it is home to a lot more wildlife and gets rare visits from humans, the soundscape of the field station is very much different than the rest of the 5Cs campus.

At the time of my recording they were working on the construction of a new facility within the field station (at a distance), which can be heard in the recording.

Recording: I made my recording on the edge of the (artificial) lake located within the Field Station, at 8:30am in order to capture all the wildlife activity that goes on in the morning. The capturing was done using a TASCAM DR-40 Sound Recorder at a height of 3ft with the windscreen.

Description:
The clip starts with a strong industrial humming sound which sounds like an airplane, but is actually coming from the construction. Although the humming is prominent, you can still hear bird calls going on in the background. Since the geo-spatial aspect of the audio is removed in the recording it is hard to tell if the calls are made by a single bird, or multiple birds. However, to the sophisticated ear these bird calls act as signals, acting as identifiers of the birds species, and possibly intention. Since the birds live, or frequently visit the field station, the presence of bird calls can be considered a soundmark, although the individual calls change with season and time of day. By themselves, these calls can additionally be considered as signals between the birds. At 0:27, we hear the train whistle coming from the train station down in the Claremont Village. This is a sound that can be heard all across the campus, and I’m surprised that it could also be heard from the north border of the campus. It acts as both a signal, letting people know that the train has arrived, and also a keynote. At 0:50 and 1:10 you can hear quiet rustling noises which was caused by a bird diving into the reeds located near the lake.