Karl wears a T-shirt with a bird print. You follow him up the stairs. Glass doors prevent the vintage recorders from collecting dust. One of them is big as a suitcase, made of metal and probably very heavy. 40kg to be exact.

He gives it a light spank and tells you about how it all started on October 30, 1951, when a Tawny Owl was accidentally caught on tape in the laboratory of Günter Tembrock, known as the founder of the archive.

(not to be confused with a tiny owl) “Nobody would have expected that this would be the beginning of a large sound archive!” A rhetorical pause. It is not the first time he tells this story and it is not the first time you hear it. It is advertised on their web page and spelled out in detail in an international Journal about animal sound recordings, written by Karl himself.