(Click above link to listen to the live Shoutcast stream with iTunes or Winamp.)
The hydrophone node at Lime Kiln State Park is located just southwest of the
Lighthouse in about 7 meters of water. There is a long history of hydrophone
deployments, repairs (after winter storm damage), and acoustic research at the
Lighthouse. We thank Lime Kiln State Park for hosting the long-term research
efforts of the Whale Museum and the
Washington State Department of Wildlife for supplemental funding to repair
storm damage in winter, 2007.
As of March, 2016, the stereo streaming system is maintained through a partnership between
The Whale Museum and SMRU, led by Dr. Jason Wood.
From 2007-2016, a dual-hydrophone system provided a live
stream and archived time series of mean broadband and spectrum levels.
The hydrophones were wired up by Val Veirs and attached to existing moorings
during an initial SCUBA dive by David Howitt and Scott Veirs. Custom software written
in Visual Basic by Val Veirs assesses average underwater sound levels and
automatically detects "unusual" sounds. The stream was distributed by
spacialnet.com for $23-30/month, paid for first through a NOAA grant to TWM and Beam Reach,
and subsequently (2011-2016) by Beam Reach.
Archived sounds from Lime Kiln
These sounds are presented using a Flash-based player called Wimpy...
You can use the above "playlist" to access all archived files. Exceptional recordings are described below (and can be played using the adjacent icons).
Listen link
Date
Time
Description
05/23/07
17:08
A 2-minute mono clip of J pod calls and clicks (w/some ship noise). From a longer vocal period (16:40~17:45).
06/01/07
19:53
A 4.5-minute stereo clip of J pod calls and clicks, including an airplane and the sound of an orca surfacing. From a longer vocal period (19:45-20:23). [Warning -- this recording has low background noise and some sudden much louder sounds and concomitant distortion from the stream encoding].
06/01/07
20:21
A 2-minute mono clip of J pod clicks and remarkably similar clicks from an approaching ship. The end of a longer vocal period (19:45-20:23). (The ship noise waned by ~20:35. Two faint calls were heard ~21:21. Another ship was approaching at 21:30.)
08/23/07
22:15
A 4-minute 16-second mono clip of southern residents (J+K+L?) recorded by Lynn Waller. She noticed increased vocal activity about 2-min 45-sec into recording. Other listeners reported calls at Lime Kiln at 21:25, 22:50 and 23:10, and at OrcaSound around 23:15 (with a harbor seal), suggesting they were spread out along much of the west side.
04/01/08
13:05
A 1-hour 4-minute 4-second mono clip of southern residents J pod members containing calls, echolocation clicks, pebble splash sounds, and boat noise. The J16s were sighted about two hours earlier ~1km south of the hydrophone. Listening log
06/25/08
22:15
A 2-minute stereo clip of southern residents recorded by Andy Good of the UK. This recording contains a few very loud whistles, as well as S1 and S16 calls, that were made as the orcas traveled north past Lime Kiln.
The Network was expanded from 2006-2012 with generous support from the National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Other major funding has come from the Washington State Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW), Beam Reach, and Cornell University (Chuck Greene).
We are working to diversify our sources of support and build resiliency into the network. If you would like to contribute financially, please consider making a donation:
You can also try to record the streams when you hear something that
interests you. We recommend Stream Ripper (free, open
source, all platforms). If you'd like to explore underwater listening even
further (including sound analysis and contributions to citizen science
projects), then consider taking on a Beam Reach
externship in bioacoustics.
Don't hesitate to contact us if you'd like to make
your recording available to the listening community by having us publish it on
this web site. In any case, please abide by the Creative Commons license
