Secret World of Sound filmed owls in Interlake Area
Secret World of Sound is a three-part documentary series that will premiere on CBC’s The Nature of Things and CBC Gem on Feb. 15. This series uses science to delve into the sounds that animals make to learn more about our world and part of the filming took place right here in the Interlake.
“We were looking at the ways, animals use sound in really unique ways to survive, to make sure that they don’t get eaten by somebody else, or that they find prey or they find a mate. One of the animals that came up was the amazing great grey owl. We were intrigued by that creature,” said executive producer and writer Dugald Maudsley.
In Episode One: Hunters and Hunted, which residents can view on Feb. 15, the series’ team visited our area to discover how the great grey owl manipulates sound to capture its prey under nearly a metre of snow.
“We were intrigued by that creature because it uses its hearing in a really unique way to capture its prey in a really difficult environment, an environment filled with snow,” said Maudsley.
They teamed up with local owl expert James Duncan of Discover Owls to learn more about these impressive local birds.
“[Duncan] was just amazing in helping us not only understand the behaviour of these owls but helping us figure out where we’d shoot. And, we did we did a bunch of filming, actually on his property,” said Maudsley.
The area of interest that they were trying to learn more about through the owls was how they hunt their prey through the snow. Because of the properties of snow and the way that it muffles sounds and sound doesn’t always move through it in as predictable a way as it travels through air, the team used the latest technology to figure out how the owl catches its prey and accounts for this distortion.
To do this they used an acoustic camera to delve into science that, to their knowledge, was explored for the first time in this project.
Maudsley explained that it was a particularly cold -40 Celsius day when the filming took place and the crew who was mostly from warmer climes was quite chilly but in the end, they got the information they needed.
Something else that Maudsley mentioned as particularly interesting about this series is that they do use music in some sections but there is an emphasis, as you might expect, on natural sounds.
“A lot of the time when you’re watching this film, all you’re doing is listening to the sounds that are made by the animals or the location,” he said.
He said that this creates a very relaxing quality to the series.
The great grey owl was one of 21 species of animals from around the world that were featured in the documentary.
“Over the three episodes we filmed in 11 different countries, from Kenya to Australia, to the Caribbean, and of course in Canada. Here, we filmed wolf pups in Ontario, we filmed the sharp-tailed grouse in Alberta and elk we also filmed in Alberta. We filmed lions in Africa. We filmed elephants in Africa. We filmed the bumblebees in the UK, desert frogs and toads in Arizona, meerkats in Botswana, and the Caribbean Flamingo just off the coast of Mexico,” said Maudsley.
He encourages residents to check out the show next week.
“There’re lots of documentaries about animals out there. But this one really stands alone, because it focuses on sound, which is something that most documentaries like this don’t do. It’s all about the beautiful pictures rather than about this amazing sound. And so, it’s really flipping the equation around and because we’re using this cool equipment to get sounds that you normally can’t hear, we’re able to actually get inside. That’s why we call it Secret World of Sound, we’re getting inside this world of animals to hear basically how they communicate with each other and what’s going on. And by doing that, you can really understand their behaviour in a totally new and unique perspective. So, to me, that’s what’s really exciting about it. It’s just a new way of looking at animals, and the totally cool things they do,” said Maudsley.
Record Photo Submitted
Photos of a great grey owl which were captured by the Secret World of Sound team
