Nature Is My Jam

I would like to thank everyone that has donated or otherwise supported Nature is my Jam by liking, following, sharing and/or subscribing to the podcast. Your support goes directly to creating future episodes and allows this podcast to be ad-free and 100% listener supported. Your kindness means the world to me and I hope you might feel inspired to explore the natural areas where you live.

This episode is for a friend that is fighting the occasional sleepless night. The last episode (wind noise) didn’t help him so I thought I’d record some creeks sounds, in the hopes it does the trick. Here’s to the original hobbit hailing from Lowell by way of East Kentwood and East Lansing. A brother, friend and fellow Spartan.

Welcome to episode 21 of the Nature is my Jam podcast! As always, I’m happy to see you again. This week, we are on the banks of Twenty-Two Creek in my hometown of Traverse City, Michigan. Twenty-Two Creek is a shallow and meandering creek that runs along the North Country Scenic Trail and is a prominent feature in the Valley of the Giants. Its gentle gurgling sounds are the backdrop for views of stunning trees that are hundreds of years old.

While not a simple place to find if you aren’t familiar with the area, I am still surprised that more people don’t know about this amazing section of trail. I can access the trail from Scharmen Road where the NCT crosses. It is less than a mile from the road to get to this section of creek, which sits at the bottom of the Valley of the Giants. It is a beautiful hike and there will be a bench waiting for you where the creek intersects with the trail.

If the name sound familiar, it is because we were at the same location back in July for Episode 7. It is surprising how a few months can change the soundscape of an area so much. In July, the creek greeted us with the sounds of a Winter Wren, only in Michigan during their breeding season. In this episode, the wrens are gone, but we can hear Owls, as well as a persistent voice that I don’t recognize.

I will be in Mexico when this episode gets published and am planning on coming back with some glorious sounds to share with you. Have a great week and look forward to chatting when I return.

As always, I welcome your thoughts and hope you enjoy this episode. Thanks again for your continued support!

Recording Summary:

• Date and Time: 10/21/2022 | 04:15 AM
• Location: Grand Traverse County, Michigan, USA
• Landscape/Feature: Valley of the Giants and Twenty-Two Creek
• Conditions: Unseasonably Warm, Clean
• Recording Device: Zoom F6 Field Recorder
• Microphone(s): Audio Technica BP 4025
• Digital Audio Workstation: Adobe Audition

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Support the show

Thanks for listening! ❤️ Your support means the world to me. Follow me on Instagram and Twitter for daily updates.

I would like to thank everyone that has donated or otherwise supported Nature is my Jam by liking, following, sharing and/or subscribing to the podcast. Your support goes directly to creating future episodes and allows this podcast to be ad-free and 100% listener supported. Your kindness means the world to me and I hope you might feel inspired to explore the natural areas where you live.

Welcome to episode 23 of the Nature is my Jam podcast! As always, I’m happy to see you again and can’t wait to share this episode with you. The weather here in northern Michigan has been unseasonably warm, with temperatures in the low 60s (around 15.5 Celsius for the rest of the world). The leaves have fallen and we would normally gear up for the first big snow of the year, but Mother Nature has other ideas. Fall is my favorite time of year so I’m not complaining! I went to the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore yesterday to hike the Otter Creek Loop, which is part of the Platte Plains Trail. It is a roughly 5 miles (8km) loop that meanders through gently rolling hills and takes you along the creek and all the way around Otter Lake. Besides completing the loop and getting in some miles, I also wanted to find some sounds to record.

As I was entering the last section of the trail, I noticed some signs of beaver activity so stopped to inspect. I could see recent chew marks in several saplings and what appeared to be a slick mud slide down to the creek. I assumed this to be a sure sign of one or more industrious beavers, so I came up with a plan to record them working. Knowing my presence would likely dampen their enthusiasm, I quickly configured my gear to record overnight. I would come back the next day to see what sounds I captured. The trail is fairly popular, so I have to believe the beavers are used to human presence, but I always do my best to maintain a respectful distance.

When I returned, I was happy to see there had been additional activity overnight. To my complete surprise, they worked the area immediately in front of my gear and gave me a gift of some amazing sounds. Thank you, beavers!! This might just be my favorite recording of the year. I have several hours of their activity recorded and will do a longer edit over the winter. However, because I’m so excited about capturing the beavers, I want to share this clip with you on the podcast right now.

As always, I welcome your thoughts and hope you enjoy this episode. Thanks again for your continued support!

Recording Summary:

• Date and Time: 11/10/2022 | 01:00 AM
• Location: Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lake Shore
• Landscape/Feature: Otter Creek and Otter Lake
• Conditions: Mild, Gusting Winds, Bright Moon
• Recording Device: Zoom F3
• Microphone(s): Audio Technica BP 4025
• Digital Audio Workstation: Adobe Audition

Support the show

Thanks for listening! ❤️ Your support means the world to me. Follow me on Instagram and Twitter for daily updates.

I would like to thank everyone that has donated or otherwise supported Nature is my Jam by liking, following, sharing and/or subscribing to the podcast. Your support goes directly to creating future episodes and allows this podcast to be ad-free and 100% listener supported. Your kindness means the world to me and I hope you might feel inspired to explore the natural areas where you live.

My recordings from the upper peninsula are not useable because some type of critter thought it would be fun to chew the microphone cable. I didn’t notice until I got back to Traverse City, but I had to order a replacement cable. Of the 30 hours of recorded files, I could only salvage what you heard in the episode last week. As you know, I went to the eastern UP hoping to record wolves. The good? I found the wolves and tracked them for two days before setting up my recorders. The bad? They are very elusive and difficult to capture on “tape”. I have a few seconds of what might be a howl, but it is distant and could also be a Common Loon.

Welcome to the 17th episode of the Nature is my Jam podcast! Because of some technical difficulties while I was in the upper peninsula, I had to dig into some older files for this week’s episode. Not to fear, though. We are in Leelanau County again and we are going to be spoiled with a menagerie of bird calls recorded in an open meadow. How many birds make up a menagerie?? I don’t know that answer but we have 10 birds for the price of admission. And not just any birds. We are talking Common Yellowthroats, Magnolia Warblers, Black-capped Chickadees, Pileated Woodpeckers, Red-shouldered Hawks, Blue Jays (song and calls!), Crows, and more.

Northport is a tiny village near the tip of the Leelanau Peninsula that has beautiful rolling hills, forests, farmland and perhaps my favorite, expansive open meadows that soak up the sun and play host to a who’s who of Northern Michigan wildlife. This recording, as I mentioned above, is very much bird forward to the listening palate.

As always, I welcome your thoughts and hope you enjoy this episode. Thanks again for your continued support!

Recording Summary:

• Date and Time: 9/7/2022 | 7:00 AM
• Location: Leelanau County, Michigan, USA
• Landscape/Feature: Wide Open Meadow just outside the village of Northport
• Conditions: Morning, Sunny, Light Breeze
• Recording Device: Zoom F6 Field Recorder
• Microphone(s): Audio Technica BP 4025
• Digital Audio Workstation: Adobe Audition

Support the show

Thanks for listening! ❤️ Your support means the world to me. Follow me on Instagram and Twitter for daily updates.

I would like to thank everyone that has donated or otherwise supported Nature is my Jam by liking, following, sharing and/or subscribing to the podcast. Your support goes directly to creating future episodes and allows this podcast to be ad-free and 100% listener supported. Your kindness means the world to me and I hope you might feel inspired to explore the natural areas where you live.

Welcome to the 14th episode of the Nature is my Jam Podcast. Based on feedback from last week’s episode (and trust me, you had a lot of feedback!), we need a palate cleanser from the mesmerizing persistence of the Eastern Whippoorwill. The consensus is that we could have done with more mesmerizing and less persistence. Although I disagree, I have heard your voice. 

This week, we venture out to the Leelanau Peninsula to visit the Lighthouse West Natural Area, part of the Leelanau Conservancy. While the natural area is small in stature at 42 acres, it is mighty in terms of the wildlife present and the unique geography of the area. Most notably, it is a certified bird habitat, meaning, “the native plants in this landscape support healthy bird populations by producing an abundance and diversity of insects.” This distinction is the real reason I wanted to visit this area. The fall migration will begin soon and I want to be fully prepared for those hectic couple of weeks of birding. 

Next door to the Leelanau State Park, this natural area doesn’t get the tourist traffic or the noise. From the small parking lot, the trail meanders through a meadow for a short distance before plunging into a large stand of mature maple trees. It’s quite a contrast in terrain, but it changes again as the trail goes along an ancient bluff and eventually levels off into what is called a “boulder terrace”. Created eons ago, when the lake level was much higher, the terrace was a visual reminder of a different time. There is also evidence of massive boulders left by the glaciers. 

As I approached the beach, the sun was just setting, and the crickets made themselves known. The sky turned a brilliant yellow and orange while the waves slowly washed ashore. It was stunning. I placed the recorder and microphone by some gnarled cedar trees, hoping to catch the ambience of the surrounding crickets and cicadas without being overwhelmed by the waves. Not to fear, I also placed a second recorder in the meadow and captured some very talkative owls and a pack of very busy coyotes. That recording will be available next week. 

As always, I welcome your thoughts and hope you enjoy this episode. Thanks again for your continued support! 

Recording Summary:

• Date and Time: 9/6/2022 | 4:45 AM
• Location: Leelanau County, Michigan, USA
• Landscape/Feature: Lighthouse West Natural Area | Lake Michigan
• Conditions: Night, Light Breeze, Clear Skies, Mild Temps
• Recording Device: Zoom F3
• Microphone(s): Sonorous Objects SO.1 Microphone Pair
• Digital Audio Workstation: Adobe Audition

I would like to thank everyone that has donated or otherwise supported Nature is my Jam by liking, following, sharing and/or subscribing to the podcast. Your support goes directly to creating future episodes and allows this podcast to be ad-free and 100% listener supported. Your kindness means the world to me and I hope you might feel inspired to explore the natural areas where you live.

Welcome to episode 19 of the Nature is my Jam podcast! We find ourselves out on the Old Mission Peninsula (OMP) in Grand Traverse County, Michigan. The OMP is one of my favorite places to roam, especially on moody days such as I found during this recording. With rain and wind in the forecast, this was going to be a perfect opportunity to test out some new gear. As I mentioned after the trip to the upper peninsula, I upgraded the wind protection for my microphone and also added in some protection from the rain. I’m happy to report that both additions worked perfectly during this wet and windy night.

Rhonda joined me, so we drove out to the Murray Road Trailhead to begin our hike along the trails belonging to the Old Mission Point Park. This section of trail goes through various meadows, along several ridge lines, and plunges down into a valley containing what is best described as a climax forest. A climax forest exists when the plant community is relatively stable and unchanged over many cycles. Think of mature trees that represent the last stage of natural succession. There is very little undergrowth or competition from other species. There is debate in the community about the merits of a climax forest that are too nuanced for this blog post, but the primary question is, “should a forest ever stop evolving and not face competition?”

Once we setup the microphone, we took a path that we thought would lead us back to Murray Road and eventually back to our car. 20 minutes later, as the woods grew darker, we missed the spur trail and bushwhacked through meadows full of tall grass and acres of Sumac Trees. For me, this is a very regular occurrence, but I think Rhonda would prefer to stay on maintained trails. With pitch black skies, increasing wind and hunger waning on our patience, we finally found the road, and it was just a 5-minute walk to the car. The bonus of getting momentarily disoriented was finding a creaking old tree that would be amazing to record during a storm.

As always, I welcome your thoughts and hope you enjoy this episode. Thanks again for your continued support!

Recording Summary:

• Date and Time: 10/12/2022 | 1:30 AM
• Location: Grand Traverse County, Michigan, USA
• Landscape/Feature: Old Mission Point Park | Ridgeline facing a climax forest
• Conditions: Warm, Rain, Wind
• Recording Device: Zoom F3 Field Recorder
• Microphone(s): Audio Technica BP 4025
• Digital Audio Workstation: Adobe Audition

Support the show

Thanks for listening! ❤️ Your support means the world to me. Follow me on Instagram and Twitter for daily updates.