Singing Insects Soundwalk At Big Marsh Park

Join me at 7:00 PM on Wednesday, August 11 at Big Marsh Park in Chicago for the Singing Insects Soundwalk with Dr. Carl Strang and the Singing Insects Monitoring Program.

We will lead the group through listening exercises during a short soundwalk which will then be followed by a singing insect monitor training and a second soundwalk led by Dr. Carl Strang.

Location:

Big Marsh Park (Park No. 564)

11555 S. Stony Island Ave.
Chicago, IL 60617

The Singing Insects monitoring program is a citizen science effort to familiarize people with common sounds of singing insects in the Chicago region, including grasshoppers, cicadas, katydids, and crickets. Building on Dr. Carl Strang’s work documenting species across 22 counties, the purpose of the project is to collect local baseline data and help people keep their ears perked for unusual insect calls each summer. Data collected is publicly available to anyone who wishes to use it, and walks are conducted informally site by site along a route prescribed by a surveyor.

This event is free to the public and is one of six for the annual Summer Soundwalks in the Park series with the Midwest Society for Acoustic Ecology (MSAE), with support from the Chicago Park District’s annual Night Out in the Parks arts and culture program.

In support of this program, I am pleased to include the recent video about Big Marsh and the Singing Insects Monitoring Program.

Singing Insects at Big Marsh Park introduces the various sound-making insects and invite everyone to listen for distinctive character they lend to our changing summer soundscapes in Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin. This film also introduces the Singing Insect Monitoring Program, a citizen science initiative of outdoor educator and program coordinator, Kathleen Soler in partnership with naturalist Dr. Carl Strang, Negin Almassi from the Sagawau Environmental Learning Center in Cook County, and audio artist Eric Leonardson, co-founder of the Midwest Society for Acoustic Ecology.

Big Marsh Park is one of the Chicago Park District’s new assets, a former slag dump undergoing ecological restoration back to its wetland state with added research and recreational infrastructure.

This film was edited by Raunak Kapoor produced by Louise Allen, Nickolay Hristov, and Martha Merson, Project Director of iSWOOP, cinematography by Eric Leonardson, Paul Fitzgerald, and Kathleen Soler with support from the Chicago Park District’s Night Out in the Parks, TERC and the National Science Foundation.

I encourage you to subscribe to the Midwest Society for Acoustic Ecology YouTube channel and visit MSAE’s website to find many creative and educational resources on sound, field recording and ecological restoration.