Sensing the more-than-human environment

Organic time is concealed with public health measures concerned primarily with 'offensive' sounds and smells. 'Sensory impoverishment rules in a world selectively sanitised for your protection.' - Sensory Geographer J Douglas Porteous

Grey-headed flying foxes (Pteropus poliocephalus), keystone pollinators of all hardwood eucalypt species, are intelligent social animals that are essential to the health of our native forests.

During mating season, from March to April, the male flying fox emits a distinctive musky odour reminiscent of wet dog and ammonia. The large olfactory bulbs of flying foxes enable sophisticated processing of scents, which is crucial to navigating their social smellscape.

During the 'Enlightenment' period, the Cartesian theory of mind/body dualism vaulted vision to the pinnacle of the sensory ways of knowing. Visual perceptions could be more accurately and objectively quantified than the 'lower subjective senses'. Yet, as social theorist Boaventura de Sousa Santos notes, 'Deep seeing is not just about seeing; we might call it a meeting of seeing and being seen.'

The visual experience of bees (Apis mellifera) is one that is finely tuned to the needs of their ecology. Bees are sensitive to polarization, which allows them to navigate using the sun's position even on cloudy days. While their compound eyes, ommatidia, allow bees to see in many directions at once and perceive motion in order to navigate through complex environments. They are able to see ultraviolet light emitted by flowers to guide them to their nectar and pollen. Bees also have a unique ability to detect patterns, which helps them to recognize and remember different types of flowers.

Customarily understood as so basic to our bodily existence, the intimate sense of touch is often taken for granted. Yet, cultural anthropologist Constance Classen describes touch as the 'deepest sense'.

A cacophony of frog and insect calls emerges from an evening thunderstorm, including the common green tree frog (Litoria caerulea).

For frogs, their skin is a vital sensory organ, and touch is a primary means to sense their environment. Their thin, permeable skin directly absorbs water and oxygen and contains sensory receptors that detect touch, pressure, temperature, and pain.

In autumn, migratory shorebirds, such as the Eastern Curlew (Numenius madagascariensis), in the Pumicestone Passage head back north to their breeding grounds in Siberia, Northern China and Alaska via the East Asian-Australian Flyway. The Bar-tailed Godwits (Limosa lapponica) can fly incredible distances, with a record of 13,560 kilometres from Alaska to the Australian state of Tasmania without stopping.

These birds navigate their migrations using their ability to sense the Earth's magnetic field. A protein in their eyes that lets them "see" Earth's magnetic fields. A class of proteins called cryptochromes - photoreceptors sensitive to blue light, Cry4, are responsible for their ability to orient themselves by detecting magnetic fields, a sense called magnetoreception.

The first sonic experience on Earth was a submerged soundscape. 'Waves whipped into surf, pelting the first rocks as the amphibian ascends from the sea. And although he may occasionally turn his back on the waves, he will never escape their atavistic charm.' - Acoustic ecologist R Murray Shafer.

Sound is the most prominent sensory capacity beneath the surface of the water.

Fish can hear particle motion. The lateral line is a sensory system that allows fishes to detect weak water motions and pressure gradients. Hundreds of neuromasts, a sensory structure of ciliary bundles of hair cells spread over the head, trunk and tail fin, connect the Javelin Grunter (Pomadasys kaakan) with the surrounding aquatic world.

Apalech author, Tyson Yunkaporta, describes the dualism between inorganic/organic and living/dead matter as an 'ancient Greek mistake' that has limited the potential of 'Western' thought, which 'came late to the discoveries of what is now called 'dark matter', finding that those areas of 'dead and empty' space actually contain most of the matter of the universe.'

The fish traps at Sandstone Point were created circa 600 years ago from Landsborough Sandstone deposits formed in the early Jurassic period (190-180 million years ago). Many First Nations cultures believe in the sentience of stone.

'As Indigenous people have always known and as Western science is increasingly discovering, the world is alive, sentient, and interconnected, with every part contributing to the whole. Everything is not only connected; everything is also communicating, sending and receiving messages that allow life to persist and evolve. The forest is not simply a collection of trees, but a community of beings, each dependent on the other, a whole greater than the sum of its parts.' - Ecologist Suzanne Simard.

Trees experience a sense of connection using underground fungal networks in a process known as mycorrhizal symbiosis. Through this network, trees can exchange nutrients, water, and even information about potential threats through this 'social nervous system'. This communication and symbiotic support system strengthens forest health and resilience.

So tread lightly as you go forth on Kabi Kabi/Gubbi Gubbi Country. The Traditional Custodians of which have recognised the importance of reciprocity in the more-than-human world and tended to these interconnections since time immemorial.