Listen to this: Apple TV+ series 'Earthsounds' spotlights nature in an aural way
May 7—Sam Hodgson is a wildlife lover.
It's no wonder he was ready to jump on as producer of the Apple TV+ series, "Earthsounds."
"I love listening to sounds of nature," Hodgson says. "It was a project I couldn't turn down. It's interesting to listen to what goes on after dark, and there's more to nature than meets the eye. We wanted to use new technology to take viewers on a journey through different soundscapes."
Filmed over 1,000 days across three and half years, "Earthsounds" reveals the planet like never before — a world buzzing with unexpected, unfamiliar and untold sonic stories.
Production had over 3,000 hours of audio, which was done by using cutting-edge technology to record the planet in brand-new ways.
Hodgson says it was also filmed across 20 countries on all seven continents, "Earthsounds" crews traveled to spectacular habitats, including the Queensland rainforest, the Antarctic ice shelf, the Namibian dunes, tropical coral reefs and more.
Discoveries and rarely heard recordings from the series include snow leopards singing love songs, the intimate chatter of ostrich chicks from inside their eggs, musical spiders, walrus' underwater courtship calls and more.
But it's not just animals that make unusual noises; the series also captures the mesmerizing secret sounds of our planet, including the hum of deserts, drinking trees, and the mysterious buzz of the Northern Lights.
The series is currently streaming on Apple TV+.
Beth Goodwin is a marine biologist and is featured on episode 12 of the series.
While shooting "Earthsounds," Goodwin and team used a remotely operated vessel the size of a surfboard, with a built-in hydrophone, and discovered a new corridor for humpback whales moving between Hawaii and Mexico in waters thought to be unreachable to them, highlighting the importance of this remote area of the ocean.
"We started listening to the humpback whales singing and decided to start a website dedicated to the data," Goodwin says. "We were able to search and explore. It was like we were searching for a needle in a haystack. When we discovered the new sounds, it was an event that changed the trajectory of the project."
Also featured in the series is Bourhan Yassin of the Rainforest Connection.
Yassin traveled to remote areas to put in listening devices in the rainforest. This would enable scientists to listen for endangered species.
Yassin and team were able to capture the sounds of one of the world's rarest birds, the Puerto Rican parrot. The devices were to monitor their movements to better protect them, as well as flagging the sounds of chainsaws to respond to illegal logging.
"The ability to take the team and get all the devices set up was intense," he says. "It took us a week to get about four or five minutes of sound. We were really installing these devices as to become guardians of the areas. It's amazing to be able to showcase how beautiful the world is through a sonic lens."
