The soundscape team from Purdue has posted 20,950 audio recordings from 10 sites around the reserve:

• Listen to Wells Reserve Soundscapes

They're 10 minutes a piece, so to hear them all you'll want to carve out 145.5 days of uninterrupted listening time. (If only I had started as soon as I received the link, I could have wrapped up my sonic immersion on New Year's Eve.)

Taken a bit at a time, you can use these snippets to form a fascinating soundtrack to your day. Put on headphones and travel back to spring for an evening visit to a vernal pool. Wonder what the same peeper chorus sounds like underwater? Now you know.

Go to the same May day, a few hours later and in a different spot, and enjoy another kind of chorus. Browse around. Maybe you'd like to test the Amtrak Downeaster's punctuality or eavesdrop on corvids conversing. Browse long enough and you're sure to discover people talking, too, though their voices might blend gently into the acoustic environment.

I'd like to search for owls, track a thunderstorm, explore traffic patterns of trains, planes, and automobiles. While the Purdue team has software that can be taught to recognize specific sound "signatures," making terabyte crunching much more efficient, I think I'll limit my research to the computer between my ears.

Hear something good? Please let us know.