Sounds of Shark Bay
A visit to Shark Bay will unveil a amazing array of sounds from the undulating call of the rufous fieldwren to the roar of blowholes as air surges through the limestone. Click on any of these icons and experience some of the audio delights of Shark Bay.
Be patient! The sound files take a short while to download (450 - 1300 kb)
(37 sec) - What is stridulation? It's the act of rubbing body parts together to make a sound! Listen to ants stridulating!
(30 sec) - Beetles stridulate too! Compare the noise made by a beetle with that made by ants.
Southern scrub robin
(51 sec) - The southern scrub robin is a ground bird found amongst the shrubland of Shark Bay. Listen to its piping whistle and the accompanying chiming wedgebill in the background.
(1 min 6 sec) - Blowholes are holes in the limestone formed from years of wave action eating away at the rocks. Listen to the noise of water and air pushing up through the holes in the limestone.
(39 sec) - Why did you get drunk? This is the question every chiming wedgebill seems to ask - over and over! Can you make out the call of this bird?
(1 min 4 sec) - Cormorants breed on mass at a location on the eastern side of Dirk Hartog Island. Listen to them fight and cackle as they defend there very small nesting site.
(29 sec) - The haunting call of the crested bellbird is a common noise across Shark Bay. Listen for the "pan pan panella" call of this bird of arid parts of Australia.
(55 sec) - Tiny rufous fieldwrens choose prominent perches to call from. Listen to their beautiful call.
Osprey and singing honeyeater
(57 sec) - Singing honeyeaters chirrup away throughout the shrublands of Shark Bay. Listen to these common honeyeaters and the piping whistle of an osprey nearby.
Singing honeyeater at dawn
(1 min 1 sec) - Singing honeyeaters are one of the more common birds in arid parts of Australia and Shark Bay is no exception. Listen to this dawn chorus.
(13 sec) - Contact whistles of this large bird of prey that is common near water in Shark Bay.
(48 sec) - Appropriately named, the shoemaker frog (Neobatrachus sutor
) sounds like a man tap tap tapping a small hammer on wood. Can you hear it? This frog only calls after good rains which could happen once a year or even less! The background noise is the crawling toadlet (Pseudophryne guentheri
(23 sec) - Wark wark wark goes the little crow. Unlike the whaling call of the Australian raven from further south the little crow has a shorter, clipped call.
(1 min 5 sec) - White-winged fairy-wrens move about in small groups of one male with several females or young birds. Listen to the rolling warble of this small bird. (Can you hear the "pseeuuw" of the horsfields bronze-cuckoo in the background?)
(33 sec) - One of Australia's smallest birds these social animals can be found in flocks of up to several hundred. Listen to its "Nyyii Nyyii" call.
(59 sec) - Shell Beach is a beach made entirely of billions of small shells. Listen to the sound of shells rolling in the small waves washing up on the beach.
(56 sec) - A compilation of wave noises from around the bay.
Wind in heath
(59 sec) - One thing Shark Bay has is wind! Listen to it as it blows through the heathland.