Recording Redwoods: Sounds of the Forest
photo by Thomas Rex Beverly
Thomas Rex Beverly has dangled from ropes in deep caves and off Patagonian glaciers to masterfully record the sounds of nature which help bring stories like CODA, The Last of Us, and Frozen II to life. This time, he hopes to dangle overnight from an old-growth redwood in the “Valley of the Giants” at Camp Jones Gulch, which you protected in 2022. Excited to uncover sounds of nature nearly imperceptible to the human ear alone, he cups his ears listening intently in the old-growth grove to gauge how long sounds travel beneath the ancient trees. After carefully listening to a subtle gust of wind blow through the grove, he explains the sound of the wind is formed by the length of the tree’s needles; their distance from the ground mellows the sound.
As he looks for ideal spaces to place his microphones attuned to different levels of noise on the forest floor, he hopes to hear water, rain, wind, birds, and the hollows of the redwoods as they can only be heard by one of the most sensitive microphones in the world. But recording at Camp Jones Gulch has different challenges than some of Thomas’ more remote locations. Just miles away from the San Francisco Bay Area and Silicon Valley, airplanes occasionally make their way above the canopy and enthusiastic young YMCA campers below.
To capture as much of the forest’s subtle sounds as possible, Thomas camped at Camp Jones Gulch for a week. What he heard were astonishing sounds that set him on a magical microphone mystery. Join Thomas Rex Beverly on his Curiosity Stories quest to hear the redwood forest as you never have before.
Subscribe to Sempervirens Fund’s YouTube channel to follow Thomas' journey in the first season of Curiosity Stories.
More to Explore
- Watch more Curiosity Stories about the wonders of redwoods
- Subscribe on YouTube for episode 2 of Thomas’ Curiosity Story
- Learn more about redwoods
