This 2008 recording is typical of the night time recordings that we systematically carry out. There are three principal singers in close proximity with several other singers in the distance. This was recorded on the Southern Hemisphere Spring Equinox 2008. We recorded from midnight till dawn. This extract is taken from 3:00 AM till 3:18 AM. After listening to this choir of singers you may like to listen to a clean solo performance of the 2008 song cycle by a whale we named Gabriel after the Archangel. It will help you to better perceive the exact syntax and precise frequency repetition of the cycle: soundcloud/iwhales/gabriel We were anchored at Rooney Point, the northern most point of Fraser Island below the Great Barrier Reef, about 20 Nautical Miles off the East Coast of Australia. It was an extremely calm, crystal clear night with Sirius, Orion and the Pleiades rising magnificently over the eastern horizon. The Humpback Whale songs repeat in cycles between approximately ten and thirty minutes. Individual Whales have been documented as singing continuously for up to twenty four hours. The Whales each sing the same cycle, although they each commence the song cycle at different intervals. So a low frequency pulse may be responded to by a high frequency pulse giving them Sonar (Sound Navigation and Ranging) feedback on each other’s position. We base our cycle timing of the whale song on the crescendo to the high frequency pulses. Note the subtle but definite descent in frequency of each of the passages syncopated by low frequency staccato pulses. Viewed with a spectrogram the low frequency pulses can be seen to be very precise chords of frequencies. The song is clearly audible through the hull of the research vessel although the sound pressure level of the song is reduced significantly once it passes into the air. Because water is denser than air it is a much better conduit for sound. If a singer is close you can hear the song while standing on the deck. If you enter the water the song is then felt at its full sound pressure level which is the equivalent of a jet engine or loud rock concert. Doctors Roger and Katy Payne were the first scientists to recognize that the unique sounds made by Humpback Whales were in fact conscious, complex evolving songs. They found that the songs varied markedly from year to year and that “new variations are learned traits which evolve”. Three researchers in Hawaii, two computer engineers and a marine biologist, have created a computer application to assess the entropy of whale sounds and have compared them to a range of human languages. They have concluded that Humpback sounds are equivalent to human languages.
Posted on: Fri, 23 Aug 2013 19:50:44 +0000
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