My first field recording trip to Røst came about in the early spring of 2010. I took a 3-4 hour long ferry journey from Moskenes in Lofoten to Røst. I arrived late Sunday evening on the 28th of March 2010. I was intensly looking forward to my very first recording expedition self-funded by a dj gig I did the same weekend in Svolvær, Lofoten.

I stayed in a small room at the rugged Røst Havfiskecamping together with seasonal workers from Poland. They where flown in to work twelve hours or more aday at the fish and fishoil factories during the annual Lofot -fisket, that begins in February and ends around March.

Soutwards view towards the ferryquai and the birdmountains

My first few days on Røst where spent walking about. The mainland of Røst is completely flat. The recordings was made with equipment I had rented quite cheaply from NOTAM in Oslo. A battery hungry Tascam recorder and a pair of wonderful Neumann omnis.

Mainland Røst is a cluster of a large and some smallrt islets intertwined, and inbetween theshores the tide comes and goes eternally. It had been a heavy winter so snow was still covering the ground and the birdmoutains. What you hear on this recoding is a close up of shoreside below the snow, pointing down on the seaweed where the tide was slowely sipping through it´s branches. The gulls present I presume are Herring Gulls, Common Gulls and Great Blacked Backed Gulls.

Seaweed by the shore below the last snow of March. Stavøya (Stav Island) an island shaped like a cone can be seen in the back.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/hardtalk/9426475.stm

Please read more about the Sylvia Earl alliance here.

And The Guardian writes about “how the impact of birdsong on our creativity and on our sense of wellbeing is to be explored in a three-year research project at the University of Surrey, supported by the National Trust and Surrey Wildlife Trust.The study will examine the psychological impact of being exposed to birdsong, including whether it helps us relax, can assist our ability to complete tasks and even think creatively. Eleanor Ratcliffe, the researcher undertaking the study said while there was a growing body of environmental psychology looking at how the natural world affects people, there was still a lot to understand about the power of specific natural sounds.”

You can read the whole article here:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/dec/21/scientists-study-psychological-effects-birdsong/print

(A work developed at the Nordic Sound Art workshop “Installation, site specificity, gardens and expanded architecture”, by Alejandra Salinas and Aeron Bergman InterArts Center, Malmø Sweden. Dec. 5th – Dec 16th 2011)

A flock of Common Eiders are approaching the shoreside of Johannesura, Hernyken, Røst archipelago, as I am recording the atmosphere of this particular shoreside.  You can hear their repeated quok-quok, åoos, ho-oohs and a-oohs.  There are som gulls and guillemots around and about to, and a  Eurasian wren, a raven, and I think the repetitive high pitched pviip sound is a northern wheatear.

Collecting Eiderdown is a very old tradition dating thousands of years back. Eiderdown has been gathered for use in bedding and garments since time immemorial. Archeologists have found remnants from the stone age in Finland indicating the use of down. History tells of a norwegian tax collector who in year ca 890 collected eiderdown amongst other things as tax. In the year 1651, king Christian IV had eider nesting colonies innorthern Norway protected by a royal decree since he was so impressed with the rich birdlife.

Accounts furthermore tell of him having eiderdown bought and sent to Copenhagen for his own comforters. When Iceland got settled by Norse seafarers in the 9th century, these brought with them the tradition of eiderdown harvesting and the eider has always been a protected species in Iceland. Icelanders are today the only ones who have kept this tradition and have in the last decades developed special eiderdown processing technology.The down is very valuable and people used to create small e-hus ( Eider-houses) for the birds to breed in so they could more easily collect the downs. The interdependency between humans and Eiders was sustainable and while Eiders got protection against predators, humas got downs and eggs.

The tradition  of eider-downing on Røstis kept alive by Gudrun Jørgensen and her family on Gremsøy, Røst. Here is alink to an article about her:

http://viover60.no/oss-imellom/mellom-mennesker/gudrun-matmor.html

From Wikipedia:

“The Common Eider is the largest duck found in Europe and in North America (except for the Muscovy Duck which only reaches North America in a wild state in southernmost Texas). It measures 50 to 71 cm (20 to 28 in) in length, weighs 0.81 to 3.04 kg (1.8 to 6.7 lb) and spans 80–110 cm (31–43 in) across the wings.^[3][4] It is characterized by its bulky shape and large, wedge-shaped bill. The male is unmistakable, with its black and white plumage and green nape. The female is a brown bird, but can still be readily distinguished from all ducks, except other eider species, on the basis of size and head shape. This duck’s call is a pleasant “ah-ooo.” The species is often readily approachable.

Eiders are colonial breeders. They nest on coastal islands in colonies ranging in size of less than 100 to upwards of 10,000-15,000 individuals.^[5] Female eiders frequently exhibit a high degree of natal philopatry, where they return to breed on the same island where they were hatched. This can lead to a high degree of relatedness between individuals nesting on the same island, as well as the development of kin-based female social structures.^[6] This relatedness has likely played a role in the evolution of co-operative breeding behaviours amongst eiders. Examples of these behaviours include laying eggs in the nests of related individuals ^[7] and crèching, where female eiders team up and share the work of rearing ducklings.^[8]“

What I think is a warning conversation between ravens and guillemots, in the Hernyken pass, towards the north side of the island, recorded with a Telinga parabol on the 8th of July 2o11.

The pass is about 40 metres wide and which gives it a very specific sound atmosphere.

hei vind

blås meg våken

blås meg rein

gi meg en ørnefjær

når jeg deler le med sauene

ser vi på lundene som balanserer  i vinden

det regner lundefugl

(Utdrag fra feltdagbok, Dag 12, Hernyken, 22.6.2011)

or

11b

”It was a timeless moment. I am anyone who was ever been here and listened at this spot.”

I am standing on top of  a huge slippery rock. Slippery because of the guano. The rain is pouring down and I am becoming soaking wet. But I don´t care. I am mesmorized by the soundworld around me. I have placed two DPA microphones behind my ears, and I´m attempting to do a binaural recording to capture this moment in time.

The is rain rushing down harder and harder and splashing against the ocean, the rocks and the landscape. The geophony of the rain against my surroundings is symphonious. Through the heavy curtain of rain sounds,  seabirds are calling. A few guillemots are rafting out in the ocean in front of me and thery are trying to communicate with familymembers in the bowler skree behind  me. They are louder and more vocal than usual. Maybe so that they be heard through the rain or is it because my presence is less felt/smelt/seen right now? There are also the resonating flapping sound of wings of Puffins swarming in circles above and around me and barely recognisable distant growling of Razor Bills. The biophony of the site is just splendid.
When I return back to the fieldstation half an hour later that evening, I am keen to listen to what I captured on tape.. Will it be anything like I experienced it?  I press play, but  then the recording stosp just after  a little more than 40 seconds. The battery must have gone flat in the middle of the recording! I feel deeply dissapointed.

Later I ask myself, even if I still had the recording, how would I ever be able to communicate this ”sound moment”. The esthetics of the soundspace and this soundmoment in time?

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