Humble by Mark Ferguson

Humble features bumblebee sounds recorded in various locations throughout England, Scotland and the USA between May 2017 and August 2019.

Many of the sounds featured on the album were recorded using highly sensitive miniature microphones attached directly to flowers, or suspended from suitable portions of vegetation next to observed pollinator flight paths. I also built a handheld recording device for the project (lovingly dubbed the ‘Bumble-ator’), which allowed me to track species just a few centimetres away as they foraged. Both of these approaches revealed the wing mechanics, flight patterns and microscopic sonic activities of bumblebees in remarkable levels of detail.

From the very beginning, my main goal with Humble was to raise awareness of unfamiliar and frequently unnoticed bumblebee behaviours, bringing listeners as close as possible to intimate activities such as buzz pollination, nectar robbing, mating and grounded locomotion. As a result of this micro-level behavioural focus, the project required over 200 hours of painstaking observation in public gardens, wildflower meadows, suburban parking spaces and other habitats. (Much of this time was spent figuring out where to position microphones, and attempting to visually identify the species I had recorded.)

Over the course of the album’s development, I documented some truly fascinating sounds, including pollination activity next to one of New York’s busiest freeways (track 11), holes being bitten into the underside of a flower (track 3), and the delicate scratching of bumblebee footsteps on a dried leaf (track 10). The project culminated in the discovery of a Great Yellow Bumblebee nest on the Hebridean island of South Uist; the resulting recording of mating activity at the nest entrance (excerpted for track 14) is one of the rarest of its kind, and is probably the first ever recording of this species’ reproductive behaviour to have been made anywhere in the world.

In addition to serving as a launch-period fundraiser for the Bumblebee Conservation Trust, Humble has been widely publicised by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, Midlands4Cities Doctoral Training Partnership, the University of Birmingham and many other organisations. Sounds from the album have been featured on BBC Radio; track 11 was shortlisted in the 2019 Phonurgia Nova competition; and dozens of associated recordings have been provided to leading scientific researchers, some of whom are developing AI-based bumblebee identification software. All of this widespread public and academic interest has allowed the project to grow into a wider ‘sonic campaign’ for insect conservation, harnessing the unique power of the microphone to draw global attention to our six-legged pollinators and the many challenges they face. This has been an unexpected and heartwarming outcome of my work, facilitated to a large degree by the promotional energy of staff and volunteers at the Bumblebee Conservation Trust.

Listening to bumblebee sounds instils humility. As I recorded (sometimes on the very fringes of my patience, hunched over a flower bed), I couldn’t help remembering how dependent we are on bees and other key pollinators for our global food supplies; yet over the last century, we have systematically destroyed pollinator habitat and sent hundreds of species into decline. At the time of writing, many of the sounds presented on this album are under serious threat.

With this in mind, the message is clear: we need to be Humble, with a capital ‘H’, about our importance in relation to bumblebees. We need to appreciate, protect and respect them, because they quite literally put food on our tables. Listening to their fascinating sonic worlds and understanding what they get up to as they buzz around our neighbourhoods is a useful first step on this journey.

Mark Ferguson
Bristol, July 2020

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I would like to express my gratitude to the staff and volunteers of the Bumblebee Conservation Trust for species ID and publicity assistance over the course of Humble’s development. Special thanks to Gill Perkins, Barnaby Smith, Helen King, Richard Comont, Darryl Cox and Bill Neill. Tracks 11–14 were made possible through the generous support of the Midlands4Cities Doctoral Training Partnership (AHRC).

To fully appreciate the detailed recordings on this album, high-quality headphones/loudspeakers and a quiet listening environment are recommended.

Edited, produced and mastered by Mark Ferguson.

No AI software of any kind was used in the production of Humble: all ideas, sounds, written notes and audio processes are the unique collaborative output of the featured pollinators and the recordist.

Album artwork by David-Lee Badger.

Mark Ferguson is a wildlife sound recordist. His work draws attention to the sonic nuances of animal behaviour and the fascinating audible relationships between humans, wild species and their shared environments. He is currently based in Northern Ireland, where he spends most of his time documenting the habitats and hidden stories of his native Ulster countryside.

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