Stop 6 of 11

Øret i Havet

Listen beneath the Little Belt

Middelfart's most famous neighbours are often heard before they are seen. Øret i Havet—the Ear in the Sea—is a listening station connected to an underwater microphone in the Little Belt.

Harbour porpoises use rapid, high-frequency clicks to navigate and hunt. At the listening station, those underwater signals are translated into an experience human ears can follow. What sounds like tiny knocks is part of a sophisticated acoustic picture of the world below the surface.

The installation belongs to the wider story of Naturpark Lillebælt, where conservation, research and public access meet. After learning about Middelfart's historic porpoise hunt at Henner Friisers Hus, this is a striking modern counterpoint: the animal encountered through observation and listening.

Good to know

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Extra background — not part of the original printed guide.

  • The Little Belt has one of the world's densest known populations of harbour porpoises.
  • Porpoise echolocation clicks are normally too high in frequency for human hearing, so listening systems process them into an audible range.
  • The Danish word marsvin means harbour porpoise; despite the name, the animal is a small toothed whale, not a fish.

On to the next stop

Continue east along the harbour edge to the red wooden buildings and slipway at Havnegade 98. Our next stop is Lillebæltværftet, the active museum shipyard.

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