Listening to Dartmoor

I was lucky enough to join Devon naturalist and sound artist Tony Whitehead, and tracker and bushcraft expert Robin Bowman on an early morning listening event organised in conjunction with the RSPB and Art.Earth. Taking place in a private woodland near Moretonhampstead on Dartmoor, it was a chance to listen in to one of the season’s early dawn choruses and learn more about the birds and other living things that inhabit the site.

Setting out at 4.15am and navigating narrow Dartmoor lanes in the darkness and mist, we parked up at Moor Barton at 5.00am and met others by torchlight. Gathering in a tight circle in the dark we listened to the silence (it was an incredibly still night), the owls and eventually the vast sound horizon of the first passing flight. We then walked in silence down a dark woodland path and gathered around a fire to wait for the dawn chorus, which swept towards us from the east as the darkness fell away.

There was a dream-like quality to being awake when I’d usually be asleep, and to being with other people and yet not being able to see their faces or hear their voices (much). Being silent with others in such a remote place felt safe and companionable but, at the same time, offered a sense of connection to the wider, wilder environment.

Over the next few hours, we explored the woodland site in the early morning mist: spending time with a particularly lively yellowhammer, smelling otter spraint and looking closely at deer tracks. I experienced a real tension between wanting to know facts about the place (which necessitated verbal explanation) and not wanting to hear words, just the place itself.

Robert Macfarlane has quite a lot to say about the particularity - and value - you afford something when you name it and, even now, I'm hearing bird voices better as a result of those identifications. But I also walked away feeling I would have liked even more silence from the humans and more voice from the place.

This event on 15th March 2017 was part of a series of listening events leading up to the In Other Tongues creative summit at Dartington Hall, Devon in June.