Interviewer: My guest today is Imogen Vale, who spends her working life recording the sounds of the natural world, for films, museums and a growing online archive. Imogen, welcome.
Imogen: Thanks, it's lovely to be here.
Interviewer: How did it all start? Were you one of those children who were always outdoors?
Imogen: Not at all. I was a city kid, and I spent most of my time indoors with headphones on, listening to music. The turning point was a school trip to a nature reserve when I was about fourteen. Our teacher made us sit in silence for ten minutes with our eyes closed, and I was astonished by how much was going on, layers and layers of sound I'd never noticed. I went home and borrowed my dad's old voice recorder the very next weekend.
Interviewer: And was it easy to turn that into a career?
Imogen: Far from it. I studied geography, not sound engineering, and for years I worked in a bookshop and recorded at weekends. I sent recordings to every film company I could find, and almost nobody replied. Looking back, though, I'm glad it took so long. Those years of recording just for myself taught me patience, and that's worth more than any qualification in this job.
Interviewer: Patience must be essential. What's the most challenging part of what you do?
Imogen: People expect me to say the weather, or finding rare animals. Actually, it's getting away from human noise. There are very few places left where you can record for an hour without hearing a plane, a road or a distant chainsaw. I once spent four days in a valley and got about twelve usable minutes. You learn to sit very still and wait, sometimes for hours, and to accept that most days you'll come home with nothing. The animals were there all along; it was us who kept interrupting.
Interviewer: When we watch nature documentaries, how much of what we hear is real?
Imogen: Less than you'd think. A lot of the sound in wildlife films is added afterwards, because the cameras use long lenses and are a long way from the animal, so they can't pick up what it's doing. Some people find that shocking. I don't mind it, as long as the sounds are accurate, the right species in the right place. What bothers me is when a film uses a bird that would never be heard in that country simply because it sounds pretty. That's misleading the audience.
Interviewer: You've recorded in some remote places. Is there one moment that stands out?
Imogen: There's a forest in the north that I go back to every spring. One year I'd left my microphones running overnight, mainly hoping for owls. When I listened back, there was this strange rhythmic knocking at three in the morning. I was convinced it was some equipment fault and nearly deleted it. Then a colleague told me it was a woodpecker, drumming in the dark, which they almost never do. It's now one of the most downloaded files in the archive.
Interviewer: Tell us about the archive. Why does it matter?
Imogen: Because places change. Some of the recordings I made ten years ago could not be made again today; the wetland has been drained, or the birds have moved on. In a sense, the archive is a record of what's being lost. Scientists use it to compare how busy a habitat sounded then and now, which tells them a great deal about its health. And it's free for anyone to listen to, which matters to me.
Interviewer: Finally, a lot of our listeners are students. What would you say to a young listener who'd like to do what you do?
Imogen: Don't wait until you can afford expensive equipment. A phone is perfectly good to begin with. The real skill is in listening, and you can start that today, wherever you live. Go to a park, close your eyes and try to name everything you hear. Do it every week, and keep notes. That habit will teach you more than any microphone.
Interviewer: Imogen Vale, thank you. It's been fascinating.
