Silence.
3 Likes
I love birdsong and frog calls, but I enjoy orthoptera songs too, like katydids for example.
Frogs at night and birds in the morning.
2 Likes
Birds, any bird including sparrows, Blackbirds, Sandgrouse, Sand Partridge, Little-green Bee-eater…, and at night Senegal thick-knees, crickets, owls.
3 Likes
The sound of water especially that of rain and ocean waves just puts me in the mode that relaxes me. I am not sure how to describe it but it is something that is phenomenal. The sound of water in general for me is the number one element that relaxes me. Just imagine on a hot day and you standing by the beach hearing the waves beating on the seashores or against the rocks.
2 Likes
Wind in pines, rain on leaves, running water splashing over stones, waves on a shore, white-throated sparrows at dawn, hermit thrushes at dusk, loons anytime, howling wolves, hippos laughing, corks popping (even though I don’t drink alcohol), lake ice booming, melting ice tinkling, painfully loud frog choruses, winter wrens calling beside a noisy forest stream, that perfect moment when the moon is full in a starry sky and the loon song has almost but not quite faded as the wind in the pines has hushed to the barest sigh and the birch log on the fire crumbles into a pile of glowing embers and that special someone leans in close and whispers “I love you.”
3 Likes
Yes cicadas can be pleasant and evocative of summer. On the other hand you can get too much of a good thing. I remember when I was working in forestry in northern Queensland one early Summer day. Cicadas were trilling in the trees. Trilling so loudly in fact, that I realised my hearing was at risk. I had to stuff chewed paper in my ears to get through the day. Cicadas are the loudest invertebrates (unless the mysterious Antarctic “gloop” does actually turn out to be from a massive species of undiscovered squid as some have suggested).
2 Likes
Silence. I love to be underwater.
As for sound: I actively listen to Common Blackbirds (Turdus merula).
They use tone sequences like Steve Vai.
1 Like
Pretty much any non-human sound. This morning it was a house wren singing in the yard as I left for work.
5 Likes
That’s kind of funny. Sound actually travels much further underwater, and some of the loudest animals on the planet are aquatic mammals. Dolphins and some whales have even weaponized their sound, releasing ultraloud bursts to stun fish. It turns out humans are just poorly adapted to hearing underwater.
Edit: I tried to find some more info on cetaceans using sound to stun their prey, and wasn’t able to find much. I only found one journal article that treated this as confirmed fact. Many more present cetaceans’ use of sonic attacks as a theory but are careful to mention that it hasn’t been directly observed, so grain of salt there. They are certainly still some of the loudest creatures on Earth, however.
2 Likes
Setting the scene: a walk along a rural river in the dead of winter. The only sound is the tinkling and crashing of the ice floes in the water. Then, the most haunting sound from a very prosaic source: the rhythmic creaking/silken rustling, of a flock of Canada Geese flying very low over head. They are otherwise silent, with no gabbling or other conversation among them.
1 Like
I used to think that sound came from the sun. The cicadas mainly came out during the summer, when it was hottest, so I guess my young brain must have made that connection. Now whenever I hear a cicada, I associate it with heat.
2 Likes
I also really like the sound of rain, especially when it’s heavy. There’s just something so warm-feeling about it. :)
3 Likes
Nobody has mentioned swifts yet, it seems. I live in the center of town, but especially every morning and evening gangs of swifts (Apus apus/ A. pallidus) zoom through my street, screeching. For me it’s the sound of summer. And then suddenly, by the beginning of August, it’s over, though still hot. So you realise summer is over and you’ll have to wait until April next year.
4 Likes
It’s the best! I love all of these, but just thinking about this made me tear up. Winter for us, still just amazing.
1 Like
People have already mentioned so many of my favorites, so I’d just say anything abundant. I love hearing lots of things doing well or ok. Spring Peepers, Sandhill Cranes, Snow Geese, a big flock of crows. This weekend a friend sent me a “get here now!” message for a mixed flock of at least one hundred terns fishing a wetland. Their bark/mews were everywhere, and it was the best. My first (Louisiana) waterthrush was amazing to hear this spring. We had Brood X cicadas last year and it was intoxicating. Too loud to bird by ear, but loved them anyway.
3 Likes
any noise/sound from a nonhuman :)
2 Likes
From childhood in Ohio, spring peepers were the sound of nature that got me most excited. I also loved the sound of Wood Thrushes when they returned to the woods for the summer. In Alaska I love the sound of the first flock of geese overhead in the spring (usually Cackling Geese or Greater White-fronted) and whichever warbler I hear first in May. This year it was Yellow-rumped and Orange-crowned in the same little stand of bushes singing. The Gray-cheeked Thrush’s return is also exciting (sort of the Alaska equivalent of the Wood Thrush’s return to Ohio from my childhood)
3 Likes
Gentle breezes.
1 Like
I am not so much concerned about a dolphins song … but the noise of speed boats is really annoying.
1 Like