For Release November 13, 2001

AGRI-VIEWS
by Chuck Otte, Geary County Extension Agent

We live in a society of sound; mechanical sounds, manmade sounds, loud obnoxious sounds. These sounds are all around us, at times very overwhelming and, as I mentioned last week, sometimes damaging to our ears. Sitting in my office right now, I hear the hum of my computer, vehicles outside my window, and sirens off in the distance. When I left home this morning the dishwasher and washing machine were both making noise. Cell phones ringing, car stereos turned up to the level of a jet engine and personal music devices of a hundred kinds are all there to intrude upon our personal space.

With the exception of a clap of thunder, many of the sounds of nature are much less intrusive. The sounds are delicate, quiet, often overlooked, missed, ignored or dismissed. Or the sounds of nature are lost in the man made din that seems to surround us all, all the time. A couple of Sundays ago, my wife and I walked outside and it was a very quiet evening. There was no wind and just not very much human noise at all. A wonderful opportunity to listen.

We drove out to Milford Lake just to listen. From somewhere across the lake a Great Horned Owl hooted his lonesome call. Up the draw to our right, an Eastern Screech-Owl was giving his little horse whinny call. I knew that there were several thousand ducks on the lake. And in the quiet evening hours you could hear little duck discussions, or perhaps duck conflicts, echoing back and forth across the water. Some quacks here, a grunt there and a couple of funny whistles way in back spoke volumes to those willing to turn off the noise and listen.

Have you ever taken the time to listen to the sounds of nature? Have you ever walked up to a juniper bush full of bagworms and listened to them eating and moving about? Have you sat quietly in the woods as the sun went down and listened to the little critters and insects moving around in the leaves and brush? Have you ever sat in the prairie as the sun comes up and listen to the wind moving the grass and the night time insects giving way to the morning birds? There’s an incredible wealth of sounds just waiting for you to discover.

I recently had the opportunity to listen to a new CD that is a collection of animal sounds from around the world. The Diversity of Animal Sounds has been released by the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology. It has sounds of birds, mammals, insects, even fish, from all around the world. If you have an internet connection, you can listen to some of those sounds at: http://birds.cornell.edu/audiopromos/diversity.html. The collection of sixtytwo species of critters is truly incredible and even includes calls from two extinct bird species. To hear these calls is truly a chilling experience, especially when you realize that we will never hear some of these calls from living creatures again.

But listening to the sounds of nature is a lot like listening to your children. You have to take the time to do it, or the opportunity is lost. It means you get away from it all. You turn off the cell phone, you put down the personal stereo and you just sit and listen. Not for two or three minutes, but for thirty minutes, or an hour, or longer. Maybe you’ll find it interesting and will consider it an enjoyable experience. But maybe you’ll be fascinated by what you’ve heard and you’ll buy some recordings of natural sounds and try to determine what it was you’ve heard.

Perhaps you’ll take your entire family along. You can help your children realize that there’s more to listen to in this world than man made sounds. Maybe you and your family will grow closer together and become more in touch with nature. And would that be such a bad thing?

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