EXETER'S Royal Albert Memorial Museum is collecting the sounds of natural Devon for a new installation: Ebb and Flow: Seasonal sounds through the Devon Year.

Starting next spring, visitors using the stairway linking the garden entrance to the Down to Earth gallery, will be treated to soundscapes from nearby coast and countryside including rockpools and estuaries, farmland and meadow, pebblebed heathland and oak woodland.

Chris Watson, one of the world's leading wildlife recorders, will use four seasonal recordings from these locations to create a changing soundscape evocative of Devon’s diverse ecosystems. Within these familiar soundscapes hide unfamiliar and often extraordinary sounds.

In the lapping waters of a coastal rockpool, limpets can be heard grazing and pistol shrimps heard stunning their prey. Less than an inch long, the pistol shrimp has asymmetrical claws.

When prey is close, the outsized claw snaps shut with such force that it forms a vacuum and it is the shock waves from the filling vacuum that causes the pistol crack and stuns the prey. Relative to its size, this is one of the loudest sounds emitted by an animal.

In a spring heath land dawn chorus the haunting amphibian-like sounds of a nightjar rings out. Its nocturnal life, eerie sounds and gapping mouth have given nightjars an almost supernatural reputation and some still call them goatsuckers, alluding to an ancient folk tale.

They arrive from sub-Saharan Africa from late April to breed in the UK, returning to Africa in August and September. In flight, the male’s churring song is punctuated by the click of its dislocating wing another ploy to attract the attention of mates.

BAFTA award-winning audio recordist Chris Watson has worked with the BBC on many of their best-known natural history productions including Tweet of the Day, Frozen Planet and The Life of Birds. Passionate about sound, Chris was a founder member of the influential Sheffield-based experimental music group Cabaret Voltaire in 1971.

Since 1981 he has made a career recording the wildlife sounds of animals, habitats and atmospheres from around the world.

Ebb and Flow was made possible by New Expressions 3, a national programme fostering collaboration between contemporary artists and museums to provide fresh approaches to collections and visitor engagement.

The programme will allow 20 artists to present specially commissioned work in partnership with 15 museums across England.

New Expressions 3 is supported by the National Lottery through Grants for the Arts. Arts Council England provided additional funding through the creative digital component of RAMM’s Major Partner Museum grant.

RSPB’s intimate knowledge of Devon wildlife helped identify the best possible recording sites.