A program called framework radio (
http://www.frameworkradio.net/ ) recharged my interest in field recording ... reopened my ears to the sounds around me ... which led me back to this thread, where a few field recordings are archived. I just re-listened to these Wharton State Forest (and a few other areas in SJ) recordings and, to be honest, I'd forgotten what we had here. Or maybe I was too busy collecting sounds back in the day to fully appreciate these. I'm not sounding a siren, but what strikes me the most here results from listening to the recording Guy offers in the first post of this thread; those little ponds near Friendship don't sound like that any more ... in recent years I've not heard as many Pine Barrens tree frogs here ... and no carpenters, no Fowler's, maybe a single leopard. Sure, these frogs and toads are elsewhere in the pines, but even the carpenter frogs in a nearby bog were, once upon a time, deafening due to their quantity. Now the choir, its chorus softer and admittedly more pleasant, is small. I wonder what has caused the changes. I wonder where the trend might lead. I wonder if recordings like these, someday, might be all we have.