Wood thrush my favorite too.
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Eastern Whip-poor-will - my newest quest is to photograph this elusive night bird.
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/80941499
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Winter Wren. Gray Tree Frogs. The buzz of a dragonfly’s wings as it catches the mosquitoes around my head. Hermit Thrush (thank you for that recording, nick2524, I haven’t heard one yet this spring). A fast, rocky river. American Bittern.
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Unfortunately, I live with city noise day after day. Upstairs neighbors stomping around, dogs barking, cars and buses on the street outside. I tune it out, but it’s subconsciously grating on my nerves all the time. My favorite places have little to no noise, or pleasant white noise. Deep caves are nice. So quiet you can hear your own heart beating. The mountains where there’s nothing but the wind in the trees. The babbling of a stream or the dull roar of a rushing river. The muted sounds of a forest covered in fog or snow. A little time in places like these is rejuvenating. It makes the rest of the time bearable.
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My favorite outdoor noises are definitely when the wind blows really hard and you can hear and see the trees waving back and forth, when the sun starts to set and the crickets start chirping, and the sound of a mourning dove coo.
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Just the wind in the creosote.
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One of my favs – the calls of sandhill cranes, particularly the first ones of spring.
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Common Cranes arriving from their southern whereabouts in the spring.
The songs of the Eurasian Skylark, Mistle Thrush or Common Nightingale when I’m out going for a walk with my dog.
The song of a lone Blackbird somewhere on a rooftop, when I’m sitting on my terrace on a warm summer evening (and hopefully there are no cars going by my house for a change). Also applies to thunder and the sound of summer rain. I love rain :)
The sound of thousands of bees whirling around my pollinator plants while going for one of my daily strolls through the garden.
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Thrushes (all)
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Agreed.
One of my favorites is the northern dog day cicada, though this recording doesn’t really do it justice
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The sound of a slithering snake, which is usually pretty unmistakable.
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Babbling brooks, the soft crunch of walking through snow, and the crackle of crisp leaves breaking underfoot.
For animal sounds, the drone from droves of honeybees pollinating the cherry trees near my home in spring and the squeak of Eurasian green-winged teals in winter.
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That’s a good one I forgot to mention. The first things that bloom in the Spring around here are the manzanitas, and the honeybees love them. I remember taking a video once to record the sound because there were so many bees around a single bush that you could hear them buzzing from 25 - 30 yards away.
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I have my phone set to play “sleep sounds” at bedtime: breaking waves. Those are definitely a favorite outdoor sound. I think that it would be very difficult for me to live long-term in a continental interior more than day-trip distance from the coast.
My earliest travel adventures were punctuated by howler monkeys roaring at dawn, so that is another favorite, which fills me with joy.
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A few months ago I heard a bird singing outside my window that I was nearly obsessed with identifying for days afterward. I was so delighted by it that the sleepless night I had prior to the encounter actually seemed worth it since it meant I was awake at dawn to hear it. With a bit of help, I eventually discovered my mystery visitor had been a Northern Mockingbird. I’ve been noticing some more of them hanging around my house more recently and they still make me just as happy.
On another note, all the discussion of cicadas on this thread has me thinking about this video that I think some of you may enjoy. I hope the cicada was okay but I can’t help but laugh every time I see this!
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“Mockingbirds don’t do one thing but make music for us to enjoy.”
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The spring peeper’s calls are always a favorite
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Although I record and enjoy a lot of frog calls, there are some other non-anuran calls that I loved experiencing.
The loud raucous wing beats of Hornbills flying over the forest is one memorable one.
But I think my favorite sound ever was the haunting calls of the White-cheeked Gibbons at dawn when I lived in East Kalimantan (back when there was forest instead of Palm Oil plantations). I’m not sure there is a more haunting animal noise and in hindsight, quite sad noise considering those gibbon populations are almost certainly extirpated.
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Palm oil plantations suck.