A Conversation about the Sounds of Silence

When I take my morning walk with the dog, I always think about how quiet it is. Early in the day, especially in the winter, it is rare that a car passes by. An occasional school bus chugs past, but the quiet settles back down like a blanket. I think about this, and a song refrain winds around in my mind, “Sounds of Silence.” Of course it doesn’t apply. My sensible self says that there is never really any true silence because we live in a thoroughly populated world. Not only animals, but the plants have a story to tell. And the snow. On very cold (read sub zero) mornings our footsteps on the snow squeak like Styrofoam  being crushed.  The dog’s paws skritch-skritch  on the pavement, patches of ice left by the plow. Bird claws tap on the hard metallic surface of the feeders. All small sounds, but definitely not silence. Even the plants have a winter song. Pines in the wind creak like the masts on a sailing ship, even though they are departing no shores, just rocking in place. The tall weeds rustle as though small animals were moving between them, but it is only the wind causing the whispers as seeds are strewn about. The only other noisy winter traveler is deer, and they are inconsistent. Sometimes I can watch a string of half a dozen deer stroll across a field making not a sound. Other times they thump around like they’re wearing wooden clogs and using crutches.

There are many more small noises we can hear, given the opportunity. Birds are very busy creatures, always hungry and always alert for danger. The woodpeckers dominate. At almost any given moment during the day, if you pause and listen, you can hear one or more of these colorful characters drumming on a tree trunk, or squawking to a partner or sending up that weird chain of jungle-themed notes they specialize in.  Closer to the rude interruptions we expect from humanity, the Blue Jays are raucous gangsters. They bully and caw at smaller birds, sometimes mimicking hawks just for additional mischief. The daytime raptors, hawks and eagles, are vocal, but usually from afar, so their calls seem faint as they circle high above at a distance where we would never be able to see our next meal, but they do. 

I don’t walk with the dog when it’s dark outside. The night, to me, is never silent. There is probably not a lot of difference in the sounds made by the plant life, but the bird and animal populations behave very differently. The sounds emitted by the creaking trees and whispering dried out weeds are the same, but seem menacing. The predators are more active, emitting screams and howls in their night’s work. I lack the expertise to know if it’s predator or prey doing the screaming, but I don’t want to go find out, either. Only the Coyotes and the owls are easily identifiable to my ears. The  a cappella chorus of the coyotes has a strange beauty, and the owls are such gossips that I love to eavesdrop on their conversations. They seem so urgent. But definitely the night is not silent.

If you’d like to try some immersion into Nature, and do some thinking about the peace we glean from being out in nature, listen to the Nature Calls podcast #63, at https://ccecolumbiagreene.org/gardening/nature-calls-conversations-from-the-hudson-valley/episode-63-nature-and-mental-health.

I have to mention an error I made in last week’s column. The actual column written by me ends with the words, “bird watching is addictive.” The article, however, continued with some material NOT written by me. I had neglected to remove some research notes from the page before I sent it in. The good news is that it was really good information, and I am including the link to the whole article written for and published by the American Bird Conservancy.  The error was wholly mine, and I apologize. https://abcbirds.org/blog21/woodpecker-tongues/