Fancy being transported for a minute to a river bank in Alaska? Then listen to this, recorded by Hank Lentfer, a former widlife biologist and longtime conservationist.

Lentfer and a colleague are currently working for the National Park Service at Glacier Bay to “build a library of all that whistles, moans, bellows, snaps and croaks within the nooks and crannies of our homes here in in south-east Alaska”.

On this recording, he says, “all the wet-sounding stuff is made by the fish, a pulsing swirl of pink, chum and sockeye salmon. The big gushing sounds in the distance are tree-sized breaths of humpbacks lumbering just off shore. The various clamouring birds you’ll have to sort through for yourself.”

Lentfer is also the author of the memoir Faith of Cranes, which I have just ordered, having read the prologue on his website.