Welcome To The Kingfisher Wildlife Diaries – John Bailey
November 20th 2009
What Are They Saying?
I make no apology for putting this small piece on both the fishing site and the wildlife one, too. The whole thrust of the piece is about fish and about how much we know about them...a point of interest for anglers and naturalists alike, surely?
Here it is. I was filming down at Kingfisher on a wild, wet November Tuesday and we noticed several Lobster Pot carp feeding in the shallows. With underwater equipment, we were able to place a camera very close to the shelf upon which the carp were feeding. And, even in poor light, make a reasonable fist of filming them. So far, so good but what was interesting was what we picked up through the mics.
We all know there's a tremendous amount of sound underneath the water's surface. Whale talk is a widely studied natural phenomenon. I remember a particular Swedish aquarium where most of the tanks were wired for sound and perch, especially, were particularly vocal. Well, so it was on our filming day.
I guess our cameras were underwater for a couple of hours, Fran and Laurie taking it in turns to hold the camera in place and be on dry land, working the controls! At first, we all concentrated on the images, on how close we could get to the carp, on how distinctly we could film them. It was only as the light was beginning to fail that Laurie first noticed that we were actually picking up very definite underwater messages.
After twenty minutes of listening in, there was absolutely no doubt in my mind that we were hearing carp speak. The range of sounds - a sort of subdued clucking - was rhythmic and repetitive. The sounds, too, became quite obviously louder as the carp approached the camera. Again, as they drifted away, the sounds became less distinct.
It's early days, of course, but, again, I've been reminded there's a lot of underwater chatter between fish. This could easily explain why swims and whole waters can go so dead so quickly. We know the body language of fish is important. We know they give off chemicals and pheromones. What we often overlook is the fact that they are extremely vocal as well.
This is an experiment I, all of us, would do well to investigate.