Tune in to live recordings of underwater sounds captured by hydrophones nestled on the seabed at Middelfart, Denmark. This marine protected area is a bustling hub for harbour porpoises, and a collaborative effort between Aarhus University, Naturpark Lillebaelt, and Seiche is bringing real-time monitoring of porpoise activity and ambient sound levels.
Our mission? To unravel the mysteries of why this area is pivotal for porpoises, how their activity ebbs and flows over 24-hour cycles and throughout the year, and the impact of human activities on their behaviour. Using cutting-edge software, we remotely access and manage the system online, with audio and visual feeds streamed directly to the Seiche YouTube channel.
The displays vary depending on how researchers are viewing the data: you may see a spectrogram of ambient sounds, or a map with the tracks of larger vessels (AIS reports), or you may see a click detector display, where porpoise clicks are automatically displayed as red triangles. The audio you will hear blends low-frequency background noises with high-frequency porpoise clicks, that have been dropped down into our hearing range by signal processing techniques (the audible output of an envelope detector).