A flipper-powered community service
Listen now!
What’s the story?
Each fall, as the winds get going and leaf smush starts to accumulate, the hipster-industrial-fishing hamlet of Ballard, all the way out on Seattle’s upper west side, takes on additional responsibilities as one of the world’s more underappreciated musical arenas.
A raft of sea lions, well over a hundred, still huffin’ from a swim that started in California, lumbers onto a breakwall at the foot of Sunset Hill. Once in position, they start hollerin’ at the top of their 250 horsepower lungs like there’s no tomorrow, belting out a single a capella number that goes on for half a year. If there are intermissions, I’ve missed them. For us hill-dwellers, close enough to catch the show through closed windows, this is the house music of our winters.
And then all of a sudden, on an otherwise beautiful spring day, they’re just gone. All 100,000 pounds of them or what ever it is. Feels like something important has been unplugged…. Now what are we supposed to do?
Eight billion people on the planet have it worse, victims of geography and the limitations of sound travel, sadly unable to get even the smallest earful of this.
I’m happy to report that these problems have been solved.
— Chris
Your Questions, Answered
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Recommended minimum dosage is 15 minutes, ideally with headphones on. With a shorter listen, everything might sound the same and you’ll come away thinking I’m some kind of crackpot.
Importantly, there are big differences in activity over time. Sometimes it’s just a few comical groans, sometimes it’s a full on yell fest, and sometimes you can hear ‘em pile into the water to chase a paddle boarder.
Don’t think you’ve heard it all after a few minutes. Check back in at another time and you’re likely to hear something completely different.
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Not yet, maybe someday. You’re listening to a set of field recordings I made in the spring of 2026.
There are close to four hours of recordings, taken from various locations at Shilshole Marina over a few weeks. You could listen for quite a long time and never hear the same thing twice. I’ll keep adding recordings as conditions allow.
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Absolutely. I’ll send five stickers for free to anyone who asks. The stickers are 3×2” with the image you see at the top of the home page.
Use the feedback form to tell me where to send them.
BTW, what you would be promoting with the stickers is interest in this amazing group of animals. We are lucky to have them, wouldn’t it be cool if more people got a listen? That’s all. This is not intended to be a money-making enterprise.
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These sea lions hang out in a particularly busy corner of Puget Sound, just off the Ballard Locks. At various points in the recordings you’ll hear fishing boats, tugs moving barges, pleasure craft, as well as kayakers and paddle boarders.
Floatplanes and airliners fly over at times, and there’s a railroad close by.
Once in a while the mics pick up play-by-play commentary from people who’ve stopped by to watch the sea lions. Doesn’t happen often, but it’s fun when it does.