My Temple of Nature: The Sounds of Silence

I was reading something the other day that struck me - the phrase a person wrote about 'loving nature where there is no noise'. And I thought to myself, 'There IS no such thing!' Unless you're in a vacuum there is sound. There might not be the drone of traffic and horns honking or cell phones ringing and people talking, but even in a secluded forest there are things to hear. Like leaves rustling in the breeze, birds singing, squirrels chattering, and bees buzzing. So this post is about some of the sounds of nature.

Around my house I don't hear a lot of traffic. In my yard, between the caw of crows, the raspy squawks of the starlings, the 'jaying' of the bluejays, the cooing of pigeons, the chirps of the sparrows, and the occasional honking of geese as they fly over, it can be down right noisy just from the birds.

This is another sound you might hear in your backyard - the eerie coos of a mourning dove.

Source: Wikipedia

Or the hum of a hummingbird's wings. (I saw my first hummingbird on Sunday.)

Source: Mad Gene

And what summer evening is complete without the buzz of cicadas? Do you know how they make it or what one looks like? Check this out.

Or perhaps the lovely bass of a bullfrog singing.

Source: Wikipedia

In my post about the raccoons I said that sometimes I hear them rather than see them. Here is a cub calling for mom. Imagine what a racket they could produce when there are FIVE youngsters.

How about something a little more exotic? Like the song of a humpback whale. Did you know only males sing and every whale's song is different? Did you know that their songs change and evolve? To take a listen, click here.

Source: Wikipedia

Friends of mine just returned from a trip to Nicaragua and Panama. On one side trip they saw howler monkeys. If you've ever heard one, you'd know they are aptly named. Click here for a unique experience.

Source: Wikipedia

To hear the braying of a very hungry sea lion, click here. Didn't know sea lions can bray? Well, maybe not bray, but that's the first word I thought of when I heard it. And it is pretty funny even though it's at a zoo and not in the wild.

Source: Wikipedia

And some animals communicate with sounds we can't even hear. An elephant trumpeting is the most familiar sound we equate with elephants, but their language is actually very complex. Elephants use low frequency rumbles or infrasound to communicate over long distances. For a quick video, click here. Maybe that really is the ultimate sound of silence.