"Oh - suppose that you could see sound as well as hear it," he says. "The spot where you're standing is obviously the clearest, but you can tell what's going on nearby without much trouble; then as you get farther away, the nearer sounds obscure the farther ones until it's all just a muddle. It's somewhat like that. If I'm somewhere harmonically quiet I can see a long way, but the more noise there is, the harder it is to see past it. It has gotten considerably easier with practice, though, which is how I managed to pick out this tangle while sitting down. When I was one or two centuries old, I would've had to fly in circles for an hour to get it all, especially with that cliff in the way."