Monster In The Swamp: Santee Coastal Reserve

 

See what it’s like to explore and record one of the unknown gems of the Eastern United States.

 
 
Join me on a field recording trip to the Santee Coastal Reserve where I record the sounds of an alligator bellowing and much more!

The next stop on my field recording road trip brought me to the Santee Coastal Reserve on the coast of South Carolina. I was originally attracted to this area because of its size, distance from main roads and free camping. In total, I spent three nights here and was truly in awe of the beauty and diversity of this land.

This trip blessed me with many recordings but most notable were the monstrous sound of bellowing male alligators and the best barred owl calls I’ve captured to date.

Santee Coastal Reserve

 

Before the Santee Coastal Reserve (SCR) was protected, much of the land was used for rice farming. The habitat created by rice fields is invaluable to wildlife, and is especially so at the SCR now that the property is managed for the benefit of breeding, migratory and wintering waterfowl, shorebirds and wading birds.

In fact, the SCR has earned the designation as Important Bird Area by the American Bird Conservancy. For more information about Important Bird Areas, click here.

Besides the managed rice fields, the SCR also features upland forests of longleaf pine and live oak, bottomland cypress swamps, and freshwater, brackish and tidal wetlands.

There area also two islands in the reserve that are only accessible via boat and offer habitat to nesting loggerhead sea turtles.

I wasn’t able to explore either island on this trip but I hope to in the future.

Globally-Important-Bird-Area.jpg

Behind The Sounds

 
 

The Behind The Sounds (BTS) video for this trip is available to my supporters on Patreon.

The BTS series is a resource for learning field recording techniques, advice, methodology, and gear selection and set up.

Each episode covers one recording expedition.

It takes a tremendous amount of time and effort to film these informative videos in the field and edit them in post production.

To watch this Behind The Sounds episode and the full series to date, consider becoming a Patreon. If you do, you’ll also receive my Field Recording For Beginners eBook and the opportunity to Zoom with me to ask questions, nerd out on gear, or receive critiques on your work.

 
 

Recording

Because I arrived late to the SCR my first day, I only had time to setup camp and explore one trail before sunset. I did capture some recordings of me walking on the raised boardwalk and of the soundscape there, but handling noise and noise pollution prevented me from recording anything great.

Over the next two days and nights, I had much more success setting up drop rigs with my SASS microphones paired with a D100, Olympus LS-10 and even a Tascam DR-05x to test it’s new scheduled recording feature.

Recording #1

 

First drop rig: SASS microphone with Olympus LS-10 recorder.

 

My first recording overlooked a large wetland densely populated with tall vegetation. The sound of the wind blowing through the grass caught my ear, as did the many species of birds calling at dusk.

After hearing both, I attached my SASS microphone to a tree and ran the audio into an Olympus LS-10 recorder in a drybag.

The recordings that resulted from this setup were my favorites. The star of the show was a close by alligator making territorial bellowing sounds.

When I first saw them on the spectrogram, they were such a low frequency that I thought they must be some kind of noise pollution. When I listened, I knew it must be an animal and I first thought it was a frog. After doing some research, I excitedly discovered that it was an alligator! I was surprised to hear that one was in this wetland with such thick vegetation.

Recordings In Chronological Order:

Recording #2

 

Second drop rig: SASS microphone with Sony D100 recorder.

 

The second recording I setup was in a cypress swamp. I love these bottomland forests and I will record one every chance I get. They are tremendous habitat for owls and frogs. I didn’t get any frogs here, but I was blessed with an awesome chorus of barred owls!

Recordings In Chronological Order:

Recording #3

 

Third drop rig: SASS microphone with Tascam DR-05X.

 

Even though the Santee was quiet, road noise still penetrated my previous two recordings for much of the night and morning. To try and solve this, I hiked as far into the reserve as I could towards the Intracoastal Waterway.

I ended up putting 5 miles between me and the closest main route before finding a tree for the drop rig.

It was about 10:30am and I could still hear the road, even at this distance. I didn’t want to hike back out here later that evening (too many gators), so I used a Tascam DR-05X with its new scheduled recording feature for the job.

I programmed it to start recording at 6pm and did not set an off time. This way, the Tascam would record until its 2000 mAh batteries died.

Considering that the unit sat in standby mode for 7.5 hours in a black sun under direct sun, I guess it’s impressive that it managed to record for about 7 hours but I had hoped for more. Fortunately, nature blessed me with some great sounds within that short window.

My favorite sound captured an alligator coming out of the water, walking through the reeds, sliding back into the water where it then made some playful grunting sounds as it splashed about.

I must say, hearing these sounds from such an ancient beast softened my heart towards them some.

Recordings In Chronological Order:

Final Thoughts

The Santee Coastal Reserve was one of the most peaceful places I have ever visited. The diversity of the landscape made for a truly magical exploring experience. I plan to return here with a boat so that I can reach the two islands. I’m very curious to see what life is like there, and optimistic that the road will be silenced there.

I didn’t mention the fireflies at the reserve but they were the entertainment for my every evening. Each night I photographed them, learning how to best capture their bioluminescence. Below is my favorite photo of them.

My next nature field recording destination will be the Okefenokee Swamp!

For more field recording adventures, click here.

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Thanks for reading,
-Jared


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