Hippos at night

Recorded in the shallows of Queen Elizabeth National Park, Uganda. The microphones sit low, really close to the hippos resting in the mud.What defines this recording is mass. Around fifteen hippos, mostly stationary, but never still.Their presence registers through pressure, slow exhalations, submerged movement, and low frequency vocalisations that travel through both air and water.The surface carries subtle detail: displacement, ripples, contact. The sound is continuous but not dense, it breathes, expands, contracts.Humidity affects everything. High frequency detail softens, and distant sounds fold into the background. Insects form a constant upper layer, almost static like, but alive.There is no clear focal point. The recording holds a distributed weight, multiple bodies moving slowly, sharing space.Recorded by Rafael Diogo.