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Sounds of Nature: Music or Noise?
Years ago, I was visiting with an acquaintance about living in our residential community. She loved it here, she told me, but she couldn’t stand the nighttime racket. I must have looked puzzled and asked what she was describing — THE FROGS CROAKING ALL NIGHT!
I looked at her with a stunned expression. Seriously?! I love to lay in bed, listening to the frogs chirp their delight at being drenched by recent rain. Their chorus was music to my ears.
Don’t misunderstand. I would never describe myself as a nature nut. Like most people, I love clear blue skies, walking on a mountain trail, admiring a rainbow after an afternoon rain, and breathing in the clean air.
But my favorite natural experiences often are the sounds of nature– so delightful, soothing, even invigorating to me.
So, what are my favorite sounds?
- the rain falling softly on a summer’s night
- the raucous trumpet of the sandhill cranes, sometimes from miles away, calling out to each other
- a single tiny tree frog speaking its mind
- a gentle breeze wafting through the palm trees
- the crackle of leaves blown on the asphalt street
- intermittent and varied calls of the cardinal
- thunder crashing its protest at the humid air
- the roar of water dancing through an overflowing gorge
- the rumble of the ocean’s waves
When the world in so many respects is filled with jarring noise—war, arguing, technology—it is reassuring and comforting to know that nature’s sounds of music can be still be found; we only need to listen.
What are your favorite sounds of nature?
Published in General
I grew up in rural Tennessee, and for part of that time we lived where there was a slightly swampy area across the road from the side of the house my room was in. Spring, Summer, and Fall it was a chorus of frogs at bedtime.
Just as good is a heavy rain on the roof with rolling thunder. The trick is to get that without the tornado sirens.
Wind through pine trees is magnificent.
About 20 years ago when we lived in Rhode Island we had a tree right outside our bedroom window. In the early morning a robin would sit out there and belt his heart out. Only trouble was – that robin couldn’t sing a note. I sometimes wonder if he ever found a mate. He was just terrible.
The sound of running water was Nature’s original music. It existed long before humans or animals made any sounds. On my Rumble site, you can hear an assortment of video I have taken of rivers, the Pacific Ocean, and fountains making music. Here’s one of them.
https://rumble.com/vyrmn8-natures-original-music-1.html
When Ray and I took cruises, my favorite activity was sitting on the balcony of our room, listening to the water go by.
So my favorite sound of Nature is running water. Second? Bird calls in our back yard.
As a child in Wyoming, a favorite sound was the birds gathering in the pine trees in our yard as twilight faded and they settled down for the night. I also loved the sound of lambs as they played around in the field while their mothers grazed. Thunder and lightning were exciting as long as I was indoors watching it! Plus, our state bird: the meadowlark! My mom told me its song translated to “You are such a pretty little girl!”
When I moved to California as a newly-wed Navy wife, I loved the sounds that their birds made. We had a lot of trees around our house and it was filled with different chirping than I was used to. Also, I can sit and listen to the ocean waves crash onto the cliffs forever…
In Maryland I first encountered cicadas! WOW! That was unbelievable! Also, despite their beautiful and graceful appearance, a great blue heron sounds ridiculous!! And if you paddle a canoe through the marshy areas where the redwing blackbirds live, you will be harassed endlessly for your audacity to invade their realm!
Now in Las Vegas, I have a whole new different group of birds and again, they’re so fun to listen to as the day winds down and they gather in the trees. We have lots of cooing doves, too. And…someone in the neighborhood has a peacock!
I never get tired of listening to nature.
I haven’t heard any yet this year. It’s been too cold. But there have been times when I’ve been standing near ponds where large numbers are doing their peeping, and it was positively painful to listen to them without ear coverings to muffle the sound somewhat.
They’re more pleasant to listen to at a distance. My favorite is the toads. There can be some interesting harmonies when they get going.
I’m currently reading Jonathan Slaght’s book, Owls of the Eastern Ice: A Quest to Find and Save the World’s Largest Owl. (I think I learned about the book from the YouTube channel, This Week in Virology.) In the mid 2000s Slaght went to Primorsky Krai, on Russia’s Pacific coast, to find some of these owls for the purpose of dissertation research. He wrote about how hard it was to even learn to hear them. Their sound is low-pitched (and unlike with most owls, the female of a pair has a lower-pitched sound than the male.) I would like to go hear them for myself, but I don’t think there are going to be any trips to Vladivostok or anywhere near it this year. However, Slaght has a sound recording on his web site, at the bottom of the page.
Reading his book is almost like watching a Russian movie, with some of the same types of rural characters.
Slaght’s research team overstayed their welcome with Chepelev, who had an exceptionally nice home for a wilderness hermit. He shared his vodka and banya, but complained that their owl work was too late to do any good. And he preferred to be alone.
They overstayed their welcome on the river ice, too, barely getting out of the wilderness before the river ice went out in the spring, which would have made travel impossible for several weeks.
Not all of the Russians were in favor of conserving the owls.
And of course there was a lot of vodka:
But most Russian movies don’t help you learn about fish owls, so in a way this is even better. Highly recommended.
I love opening the window at night and getting fresh air. Yes, critters can be noisy but I grew up with the noises and they don’t keep me awake. When I went to Brisbane to see my cousins, the sounds were too different. Their critters don’t sound like our critters.
I just heard the sandhill cranes calling out to each other–they are loud! So it took a while for us to adjust and now I love hearing them, especially in the morning. That’s funny about the the Brisbane critters!