This is an album of stream recordings made on two preserves among the land holdings of the Bangor Land Trust. Nearly all of the Trust’s preserves surround and in many cases abut Penjajawoc Marsh, a large wetland of nationally recognized ecological significance in northeast Bangor, Maine.

Bangor Land Trust’s intention is to share various soundscape recordings for the enjoyment of the public and thereby to demonstrate the value of land and water conservation.

Album download includes a PDF booklet with liner notes and photos.

Track 1: bridge over Penjajawoc Stream:
Here, we are listening to Penjajawoc Stream at the site of the bridge which crosses it in Bangor Land Trust’s Northeast Penjajawoc Preserve. Under the particular water and ice conditions on January 8, 2023, as one approached the bridge, one could hear distinctly different patterns in the sounds of the stream on either side of the bridge. The unusual height of the stream combined with a recent plunge in temperatures created shell ice formations of varying shapes and sizes over patches of stream. These in turn caused various different sounds within them as the stream rushed underneath.

For this recording, two microphones were trained on opposite sides of the bridge. Given good listening conditions (headphones or speakers of reasonable quality), it is easy to hear how differently the ripples sound in the left and right channels. Recorded January 8, 2023, 7:00 pm.

Track 2: stream under ice and snow:
Here, we are hearing a stream running in winter while completely covered in a shell of ice, and with a layer of snow on top. This stream drains a former beaver pond in Walden-Parke Preserve, just north of the main entrance trail. At the time of this recording, there was a row of Eastern coyote tracks (Canis latrans var.) in the snow running straight down the stream.

When one is standing next to the stream in this situation, the rushing water is just barely audible, muffled by the layers of snow and ice. For realistic effect, listen with the volume at a low level. Recorded February 13, 2023, 9:50 pm.

Track 3: temporary stream, trailside:
This is a small drainage stream, likely temporary, which flows down the steep, forested hill and under some bog bridging in Northeast Penjajawoc Preserve. Here, the listener is standing near the forest edge by the cattail marsh which outlets via Penjajawoc Stream. The stream is very quiet, but can still be heard as one walks by, provided the ambience is fairly still at the time.

Note also the steady trill of a nearby pine tree cricket (Oecanthus pini). Further into the track, we occasionally hear a few late-season calls of spring peepers (Pseudacris crucifer), a curious phenomenon likely caused by similarities in the length of daylight between when peepers emerge in the spring and this time of fall. Recorded October 1, 2023, 5:00 pm.