Early Reflections on Natural History and Unnatural Silence

News this past summer of the extinction of another species on a distant island in the Pacific led to memories of places I had come into contact with these animals while recording sound for natural history films. More on the extinction later.

-Roger Phenix, Production Sound Mixer, Nov, 2012

Some notes from a journal –

April 12, 1986, JFK airport
Boarded plane to Ecuador for 3-­week Audubon shoot -­- ­far from help if trouble w/ equipment Big relief -­-­ days of checkout completed -­-­ Nothing more I could do now...on our way.

Alcedo

April 28,1986, Galapagos Archipelago, Alcedo Volcano
Shuffling noises outside in the dark out the tent-­flap, rain all night, Extinct volcano floor now w/ pools of water all around. A quiet place. Slept fitfully-­-­ How?—with tape recorder-­-­ to characterize this small unique ecosystem? We’re on a shifting tectonic plate at the planet’s equator. Didn’t see or hear much on our hike in. Some scrubby bushes, a little steam, one or two Giant Tortoises. Sunrise late, but rapid, inside equatorial volcano.

The big day—1 year of talk, months of preparation, 11 days on a boat in the Pacific to here and back, climbing w/ camera gear, tent, food, water, along knife-­edge rim, into crater –nobody comes here. -­-­ Tui as a child found this place, and some scientists have been -­-­ far from support – no radio communication.

That morning in the dark, getting ready to record the sound, it was eerily quiet— caldera walls seem to reflect silence back. The equipment was covered to protect from dust and rain, we were ready to go out and film the inhabitants of the volcano, wherever we could find them. The energy was high.

THE GATHERING
On the volcano floor, the air was still, there were no distant aircraft no highway noises, few bird or insect sounds in the early light. Way off in the distance was the occasional fumaroles’ hissing reminding us that extinct volcanoes can come back to life.

Emerging from the tent, what I saw was at first incomprehensible. Each new shallow pool had beckoned the sequestered volcano tortoises, 400-600 pounds each, and they were gathering, now visible in the early overcast light, groups of them crowding into the water. The caldera was home to an estimated 4,000 tortoises – They all showed up this morning. Where had they come from?

The first rain here in three years was important for them, and it certainly was a big day for us. The Aaton 16mm camera rolled all morning. The tortoises seemingly paid no attention to us, sometimes walking by and stopping beside us to rest, while we worked.

Photo © Roger Phenix 1986, Alcedo.

50’ diameter pool with four tons of tortoises in it.
One of many such pools.

Humans had seldom been into this crater. The lifespan of this species in the wild is believed to be 150 to 175 years. Some of these individuals would have been alive before sound recording or motion pictures had been invented. As young reptiles, these very animals might have stood on the rim of this volcano and watched the ship HMS Beagle passing by under sail in September of 1835, taking Darwin on the return journey to England fresh from his brush with the germ of a new theory. If only they could talk.

Photo © Roger Phenix, 1986

Lone tortoise high on volcano rim, with a view of the Pacific during Audubon film crew’s ascent, caldera in background

As the day brightened and the rain ceased, one grew bolder. With permission from our naturalist guides, I moved closer in an attempt to justify my presence. The camera dept. was filming heaven on earth. It was quiet, with bubbles and gurgling noises in the pools, and the occasional splashes as tortoises slowly moved through the water.

RUNNING WITH THE TORTOISES
I ventured close with my hypercardioid microphone and heard sounds within the tortoises’ shell perimeter—what I thought might be internal shunting of large volumes of air. The aural environment of the Giant Tortoise living inside its shell could be likened to the experience of carrying a canoe on shoulders, but with the difference that the tortoise at times extends its neck out well past the semi-elliptical boundary-layer surface of the carapace. The Giant Tortoise may have evolved novel perceptual adaptations to this architecture.

Photo © David Clark, 1986

Recording in Alcedo

The mist lifted, the day warmed, tortoises began to disperse from the pools. There was traffic and new activity around the volcano floor, as some tortoises cropped vegetation. Birds flew in to pick insects from tortoises’ extended necks. And some were mating now — with expressive groaning moans.

I had been rescued from the eerie silence — there were voices to be heard in the caldera. Whether these sounds were produced by a semblance of vocal cords, or some other forceful action of expelled air, they were loud and unmistakable, and could be heard from quite a distance. The sound of the mating Giant Tortoise symbolizes in visceral and real terms, the tenacious survival of an animal whose closest relatives have become extinct across the globe.

CONCLUSION
In an auspicious stroke of fortune, the entire population of Alcedo reptiles plodded to our camp on our first dawn on the extinct volcano floor. By the evening, our quest for dramatic sync sound film of the Giant Tortoise in this caldera on the equator had been realized far beyond anything imagined.

The Alcedo Giant Galapagos Tortoise, most often seen as a solitary animal, appeared before us in groups of hundreds, providing an experience we could record with images and sounds of group animal behavior in what had seemed at first to be a virtually deserted remote location.

This Audubon Society film profiled many other life forms in the Galapagos. Some local human history was told as well, through a portrayal of photographer Tui De Roy’ life in this place.

The Giant Tortoise, for which the Galapagos Islands are named, took center position as a recurring symbolic theme of the film.

Alcedo stands out among a few personal highpoints in a lifetime of involvement with environmental projects. An opportunity was provided by a combination of luck, perfect weather, and expert guide work, to craft an original centerpiece of verite natural history for a film representing the mission of the world’ premier wildlife preservation organization.

"Galapagos: My Fragile World," aired on PBS and TBS in 1987 as part of the National Audubon Society television series, and received a CINE Golden Eagle Award.

Featuring Tui deRoi and Mark Jones (naturalists/photographers)

David Clark (producer/director)
Steve Zousmer (writer)
Martha Conboy (editor)
Robert Elfstrom (director of photography)
Ray Day (camera and a.c.)
Fred Karns (music)
Roger Phenix (sound mixer)
Christopher N. Palmer (executive producer)