Noise Pollution

Today I wanted to rerecord forest sounds to improve on my last effort. I was more critical this time and dismayed at the multitude of unwanted background noises I had to deal with. Considering I am over a kilometer from the nearest towns and major roads you would think recording forest sounds would be simple.

Not at all. My first attempt was interrupted by the sound of circular saws cutting wood and a truck dumping rubble. These noises, along with the hum of traffic, echoed up from somewhere down in the valley. Then I noticed an aircraft flying overhead.

It soon became apparent that despite being over 30km from Stuttgart airport that did not help. As I waited for the drone of a passing jet to fade, a light aircraft arrived passing directly overhead. It looked like a motorized glider and took some time to pass by. As its insect-like buzz faded I could already hear the drone of another passenger jet approaching. I soon realised that jets were passing continually and by the time I had waited for the drone of one to fade there was hardly a minute to spare before the next arrived. Then a louder jet heading for the airport mingled with one higher up, headed no doubt to some exotic location. This continued virtually non-stop for the entire hour that I was out recording. Added to these noises I could hear more heavy machinery and diggers growling nearby on the forest plateau where work on a suspension bridge was ongoing. There was certainly no getting away from those sounds unless I was prepared to walk quite a few kilometers into the forest – maybe a job for tomorrow. Anyway it made me realise just how much ‘noise pollution’ there is that we take for granted or simply automatically blot out.

I did a post some years ago about aircraft contrails. I consider them to be mostly harmless water vapour, but then what do I know. The numerous contrails criss-crossing the sky here began to look like clouds as they expanded and sank to the ground. As they expanded they blotted out more and more of the sun. When I looked closely at what appeared to be an average cloudy sky with a few distinct contrails high up, I suddenly realised that all the ‘clouds’ were actually old contrails that had dispersed and if there had been no jets the sky would have been clear BLUE! Now that did make me wonder. That must have an affect on the weather as well as plant and animal life.