Sounding migrations

Deep listening and the acoustic phenology of whale song

Alex South

18. september 2025

Fokus: Sound and the More-Than-Human Worlds

DOI https://doi.org/10.48233/55

Abstract

The migrations of baleen whales generally go little noticed, yet they have a profound effect on underwater sonic milieux. Seasonal fluctuations in the songs of the humpback, minke, and sei whales are underpinned by the near-constant subsonic bass pulse of the fin whale. As underwater acoustic monitoring is helping to reveal, migration routes and timings of these top predators are shifting in response to changing ocean temperatures. Such monitoring allows whales to be used as climate sentinels, facilitates conservation efforts, and also offers the prospect of building on public »whale listening« projects such as OrcaSound. Widening public access to underwater acoustic data would permit an active deep listening with the potential of generating a fuller engagement with marine environments, complementing the everyday awareness of birdsong that connects even urban citizens of industrial societies to the more-than-human world. Using underwater recordings from the North Atlantic supplied by the Marine Directorate of the Scottish Government I simulate the yearly pattern of cetacean song, aiming to show the listener that different species are readily distinguished and »good to listen with«: they attract and hold the attention, extending our sense of dwelling in a world always already experienced by other sentient beings.

Listening

Headphone listening is advised for full appreciation of the sonic range of the whale vocalizations.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Prof Şebnem Susam-Saraeva (University of Edinburgh) and two anonymous referees for helpful feedback on an earlier version of this audio paper, and Dr Nienke van Geel (Scottish Association for Marine Science) for facilitating access to the field recordings.

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