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IN TOUCH – Izabela in the Forest

TX:Ìý 10.10.2023Ìý 2040-2100

PRESENTER:Ìý ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý PETER WHITE

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PRODUCER:ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý BETH HEMMINGS

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White

Good evening.Ìý

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Bird song

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White

Some wonderful recordings from a primeval forest in Poland and all done by a totally blind sound recordist who we’re going to be talking to about her enthusiasm and how she follows it in a moment.Ìý And staying with the idea of following your dreams, the blind people who are told – You can’t do that!Ìý Well, we heard an example of it on our recent programme from the inclusive farm but is it still happening?Ìý We want you to tell us.

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First though, Izabela ¶ÙÅ‚³Üż²â°ì has been fascinated by the sounds of the ancient and abundant forest in Poland where she lives.Ìý She’s been fascinated since she was 10 years old.Ìý But now it’s more than a fascination, it’s a deep passion.Ìý We’re going to be talking to Isabela in a moment about how she’s developed her skills as a sound recordist and how she locates her subjects.Ìý But first, a flavour of when ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ producer, Monica Whitlock, went to Poland to watch Izabela at work and to record some of the beautiful sounds she works with in the BiaÅ‚owieża forest.

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¶ÙÅ‚³Üż²â°ì

Perhaps you would like to listen to this.

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Bird song

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Golden orioles have songs that are more similar to tropical birds.Ìý More simple but at the same time very soft, very gentle.Ìý Beautiful, beautiful sound, beautiful flutes that can be heard.

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Bird song

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Something that is very important for me is just to enjoy the sound itself.Ìý

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Bird song

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How the sound reverberates in the forest.Ìý How the air, let’s say, multiplies the sound.Ìý How it resonates.

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Bird song

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The harmonies that are present in this type of sound.Ìý The way the sound travels throughout the space.

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Bird song

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And this is the sound similar to a cathedral because of the tall trees that are here.

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Bird song

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We, as humans, are more focused on visual aspects.Ìý When we look at birding, it is mostly about photography.Ìý For instance, identifying species by sight not by sound.Ìý Listening makes us more aware.

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White

Well Izabela ¶ÙÅ‚³Üż²â°ì is now joining me from Poland.Ìý Izabela, they are thrilling sounds that you’ve captured and they all sound so close but when did this all start for you, where did the enthusiasm develop from?

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¶ÙÅ‚³Üż²â°ì

It started in a very, I would say, unassuming way because at some point when I was more or less 10 years old, I was presented with very short clips of bird sounds from a kind of old encyclopaedia.Ìý These were like very low-quality sounds, more or less five seconds each, but this was the first encounter for me, the sounds that were classified, not a certain random sound that just belongs to some kind of bird.Ìý I remember that I started to recognise, for instance, a bullfinch or a golden oriole and like 20 or perhaps 30 other birds.Ìý And after listening to these sounds, once again and once again, just to memorise them, I became more and more fascinated with identification of bird sounds.

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White

So, I mean, this forest, is it particularly rich because there were so many sounds there, you know, often you hear a repetitive sound but it sounds as if it’s an extraordinarily rich area for sound?

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¶ÙÅ‚³Üż²â°ì

Yes, this is true because the BiaÅ‚owieża forest is a kind of primeval forest which is no longer present in almost all of Europe because such forests have been cut down.Ìý And the sound is extraordinary, first, because we’ve got so many species living together…

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Bird song

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They have still a proper habitat but also, the thing is, that the trees are very tall there, something like 40-50 metres.

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Whitlock

We’ve come to a part of the forest close to Belarus where there’s a line of oak trees, some of them are thought to date back 600 years.Ìý When Leonardi Di Vinci painted the Mona Lisa, they were saplings.Ìý Now they stand above us like towers.

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¶ÙÅ‚³Üż²â°ì

I am aware that it is just impossible for me to comprehend how does the tree look because it is too large.

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Whitlock

It’s very wide around, as well, isn’t it?

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¶ÙÅ‚³Üż²â°ì

Yes.Ìý When I was walking around this tree it was like 19, 20 small steps just to move around the entire tree.

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Whitlock

They’re very… very deep cracks, aren’t they?

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¶ÙÅ‚³Üż²â°ì

Yes, yes because I can almost hide entire fingers here.

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Whitlock

You can see tiny insects living right inside the cervices of the bark and spiders’ webs.

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¶ÙÅ‚³Üż²â°ì

Yes, there is one…

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Whitlock

Built right inside.

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¶ÙÅ‚³Üż²â°ì

So, this is something that is very rare to experience, to touch because younger trees are totally different when it comes to the sensation of the bark when you touch it.

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Such trees also makes the sound even more rich.Ìý For instance, when we listen to cuckoos calling in the BiaÅ‚owieża forest, this is something very special because the sound is reverberating in a way that is, I think, impossible in many other forests.

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White

Forests, especially deep forests, can be quite daunting environments, I think, for everyone but possibly if you’re blind, how did you go about exploring?

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¶ÙÅ‚³Üż²â°ì

I wanted to visit the BiaÅ‚owieża forest for many years but the thing is that I live quite far from there.Ìý It is in the eastern Poland and I live in the northern Poland, in the city of Gdansk, this is near the Baltic Sea.Ìý But when I managed to purchase my professional equipment, the first thing I wanted to visit was the BiaÅ‚owieża forest.Ìý And when I came there, for the first time, it was not that easy because I wanted to record a typical dawn chorus but, in fact, when I was talking to people that I would like to record a dawn chorus in the primeval forest people were like – Okay, you can go, for instance, to this meadow and listen to the dawn chorus, if you wish, yes, there is a nice sound you can just record this.Ìý It was really difficult for people to grasp what I try to achieve.Ìý Really most tourists that, for instance, visit BiaÅ‚owieża are focused on photography and the majority of programmes that are prepared for these people are photography programmes or, for instance, observation but when it comes to recording it is really a rare phenomenon.Ìý But navigating the forest would be impossible without help of some sighted people.Ìý I have this advantage that I always can count on help of my mum and my aunt because they usually accompany me on my trips and they help me navigate all the strange places that I sometimes want to visit.

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White

But it’s not just about getting good recordings, is it, I mean who taught you about things like getting the right audio levels but also having your equipment in the right place at the right time of day, you know, ways of getting as close as you possibly could to what you were trying to record.

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¶ÙÅ‚³Üż²â°ì

This was something that I think I started to grasp intuitively when I started recording.Ìý For instance, I had this technique, let’s say, when I was recording a black bird, I used to come closer only during the song belt.Ìý When the bird was silent, I was standing still.Ìý When the bird sang, one or two steps further.Ìý And this was the technique.Ìý I know that, for instance, in the past, hunters of capercaillies used exactly the same technique to approach capercaillies because these birds become deaf at the end of their song, like for three seconds, it is said.Ìý But also, when it comes to, for instance, leaving the microphone at the right place at the right time, this is just knowledge, you need to know when a given bird is most likely to vocalise.Ìý If you know that nightingales tend to sing mostly late in the evening, just before sunset, and very briefly in the morning, and they only sing at night when they do not have a partner yet, I would say the knowledge is key.Ìý Recording without would be very difficult because you would only be limited to chances and to accidents.

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White

You’re obviously very passionate about this Izabela but is there a market for this?Ìý That may seem a cynical question when we’re talking about the wonders of nature, you know, put it crudely – is this a saleable product?

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¶ÙÅ‚³Üż²â°ì

No, definitely not.Ìý If I wanted to do it for money, I would really become disillusioned very quickly because this is not something that you can live from.Ìý Thirty years ago, perhaps, the situation was different.Ìý I know this from one Australian nature recordist, Andrew Skeoch, he started recording in 1990s and really this was the point where you could live from recording nature.Ìý But now how people perceive such things has changed.Ìý And he told me, and there is some grain of truth in this, that people are no longer willing to pay for entertainment.Ìý If you want to listen to some nature sounds and, for instance, you open You Tube, of course there is also the question of quality but it is not a problem to find some nature sounds just to listen to.Ìý So, something has changed.Ìý The most important thing is just to do it because you want to do it, because you love to do it.

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White

So, you are doing it for pleasure and satisfaction.Ìý Do you remember some of your early successes, you know, are there recording moments that stick in your memory?

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¶ÙÅ‚³Üż²â°ì

The first recording moment is not surprisingly from Białowieża because this was the first place I wanted to visit when I obtained my equipment, my professional equipment and I always wanted to record a thrush nightingale…

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Bird song

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This is a bird that is not present in Britain but it has a really beautiful song and there is always the debate which nightingale sings better songs, either thrush nightingale or common nightingale.Ìý My favourite, personally, is the thrush nightingale.Ìý It was the first day in the BiaÅ‚owieża forest and after recording some frogs and some barn swallows, I suddenly heard a thrush nightingale in the distance and it was the first thrush nightingale I could hear live, you know, not from a recording.Ìý And it was also an evocative recording because you can hear trees humming in the background because there was a very gentle breeze.Ìý It was really a beautiful, beautiful recording.

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Bird song

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White

Can I just ask you, how worried are you about the future of the environment generally but the Białowieża forest in particular?

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¶ÙÅ‚³Üż²â°ì

There is a problem because the BiaÅ‚owieża forest is still suffers exploitation for, you know, economic reasons, so it is still used for forestry.Ìý It is not protected in its entirety and I think that this should be changed.Ìý I’m not worried that it will disappear completely but I think that the problem is with places which are not very well known.Ìý Perhaps I will give an example.Ìý When I was 11-years-old we moved to a different area in Gdansk which was really wild, at that time.Ìý There was vast meadow with no houses in the near vicinity and we really had a very interesting set of species, bird species, there.Ìý I started to identify birds, so I knew what we had – we had skylarks, we had corn crakes, lapwings, quails.Ìý I listed, I think, 30 or 40 species there.Ìý But after some time, this particular area was planned for development of some building blocks, they started to destroy it.Ìý And what is the danger connected with such areas?Ìý They are not known to almost anybody and people don’t even realise that there are areas that are disappearing without, let’s say, a word of protest.

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White

What would you say, this final question, is what would you say to people listening to this who want to pursue this interest but perhaps find it hard to get started, what would your best advice be?

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¶ÙÅ‚³Üż²â°ì

The most important thing is just to start listening, to start to enjoy the sound, even the most, I would say, typical sounds.Ìý You need to find an equipment that will be, let’s say, sufficient for your needs because the one thing that is perhaps the most important is to enjoy what you hear.Ìý If I started to focus more on the equipment, that the recording was too short, that I should have, for instance, choose a different kind of power bank because the battery ran low or something like that, this would mean that I’m beginning to, let’s say, lose myself because I am now focused not on the sound and on the beauty of sound but on technical things.Ìý The recording is, I would say, secondary.Ìý You always need to start from the position of awe and enthusiasm, from listening because, I think, that the world around us is excessively focused on proving that we can do something, for instance, better than other people and I think that is not the case, not with nature.Ìý We just need to be able to listen with awe, to listen with joy, of discovering something new every time.

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White

Izabela ¶ÙÅ‚³Üż²â°ì, thank you very much indeed.Ìý And you can hear the whole of Monica Whitlock’s programme with Izabela – Izabela in the Forest – next Monday evening, on Radio 4 just after eight o’clock and on ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Sounds.Ìý

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And talking of following your dreams, it was a recent programme of ours when we visited Mike Duxbury on his farm in Buckinghamshire.Ìý You may remember he was told, as a child, by his teacher – you’ll never be a farmer.Ìý Well, that prompted this email from Katherine McAteer.

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McAteer - email

Soon after losing my sight at the age of 25, I was told by an advisor that I was deluding myself in thinking that I could do a vocational degree as a blind person and that I should set my sights much, much lower.Ìý Thankfully, I ignored this advice and, like Mike, I was adamant that I would achieve my goals.Ìý Consequently, I did an undergraduate degree after completing my A Levels and went on to become the first blind person to train as a psychotherapist in the UK.Ìý What struck me about this aspect of my own and Mike’s experience was that it was professionals within the field of visual impairment who are advising us to limit our hopes for the future – a teacher for the blind in Mike’s case and a visual impairment advisor in mine.Ìý I thought that such experiences were a thing of the past but apparently not.

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White

Well, is this kind of thing still happening, has it happened to you and if it did, how did you respond?

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We’re going to be following this up and your responses could help us.Ìý You can email intouch@bbc.co.uk, you can leave us a voicemail on 0161 8361338 or go to our website where you can get more information and download tonight’s and previous editions of the programme, that’s bbc.co.uk/intouch.

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That’s it, from me, Peter White, producer Beth Hemmings and studio managers Amy Brennan and Helen Williams, goodbye.

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