I had the pleasure of spending the month of December 2023 recording in a few different jungle locations in Costa Rica. The experience was wonderful and inspiring. Most of the trip was spent on Osa Peninsula, in lodges that bordered Parque Nacional Corcovado (Corcovado National Park).

The peninsula and the park are recognized as one of the most biodiverse regions on the planet, with 2.5% of the world's species represented, many of them endemic.

While the history of the park is fraught with controversy dating back to European colonization, the importance of conservation cannot be understated.

My recordings are filled with wonderful moments that deserve to be heard. I'm parsing through everything, but I thought I'd start with one of my favorite, 90 minutes midnight insect chorusing. Growing up in the midAtlantic states of the US and with roots and time lived in the Deep South, few sounds bring me to a state of transcendence like the orchestrated song of insects at night. The spectrally tight but denselylayered score of hundreds or thousands of insects in concert is soothing to the ears and the best sleepaid I can experience for myself.

I'll point out a few voices along the way, but I'm out of my depth when it comes to identifying insects in neotropical forests, so I'll let the ecosystem speak for itself.

Some of those voices:

0:00:12 Bats flutter and circle all night, chasing the feast of flying insects.
0:02:27 If this was North America I'd immediately think this infrequent stridulating ratchet was a katydid. It probably is here, too, but I'm on unsure ground with my neotropical insect identifications.
0:03:52 ? This. This high "dink" thing. It comes and goes. I love it. It's using time, pitch, and relative volume and transience to carve out its own unique niche in the soundscape. Listen for it later.
0:16:15 The ever present, but usually inobservable screaming of bats hunting via echolocation. Given how much energy it can take to transmit high frequencies over distance, they really are screaming.
0:52:51 ooo. Something's moving. Shhhh.
0:54:02 More movement. We're not alone.
0:56:01 I like this cricket. Instead of carving out its own niche, it sings down "low" where none of the other insects sing.
0:59:39 Every now and then you can hear larger flybys and soaring. It's not a bat. It seems too noisy for an owl. Ghosts, perhaps?
1:00:49 Bats don't always stick to ultrasonic tones. Sometimes they use their Big Deep voices, like the Bene Gesserit from Dune.
1:16:11 I'm feeling an overwhelming urge to do whatever these Deep Voiced Bene Batterit are commanding me to do.
1:26:04 No idea who this stranger is. Oneanddone.

Recorded at Finca Sueño De Osa Lodge, Puerto Jimenez, Costa Rica

Parque Nacional Corcovado https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corcova...
Interested in my recordings? Contact me here: https://linktr.ee/AndyMartinNatureSound