The Careful Art of Listening

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Chances are you’ll never need, or want, to put names to every individual song maker you hear in the outdoors. There are, after all, nearly 70 species of “true” and “false” katydids in the United States and Canada, more than 40 species of ground and tree crickets and dozens of other sound-producing members of the insect family alone. And there are equally vast and confusing orchestras of birds, mammals, amphibians and others. But listening carefully to nature’s sounds — and learning at least some of the identities behind them — can help you begin to distinguish one sound from another, giving you a greater appreciation not only for specific songs but also for the astonishing depth and variety of our planet’s vast auditory repertoire. 

Fortunately, the digital age has made it easier than ever to school yourself in Nature Sounds 101 and beyond. Excellent books, recordings and Web sites designed to help you learn the songs and calls of birds, frogs, toads, insects and other animals are available to the aspiring sound student — see “Natural Sound Bytes,” below, for a partial listing.

Lifelong Learning

Although books and other aids may be able to help, there’s no substitute for firsthand experience when it comes to any sort of nature appreciation. It’s not just an ability to identify sounds, but also an understanding of their meanings, that comes to those who spend time listening carefully. In the southern Appalachians, old-timers searching the backwoods for medicinal ginseng knew to follow the maniacal call of the “sang bird”: the pileated woodpecker, which once kept mostly to the rich, shaded cove habitat favored by that plant. In the West, veteran hunters have learned to discern the rustlings of mule deer traveling through brush from those of smaller whitetail deer that share the same range. Birdwatchers seeking day-roosting owls listen for the excited caws of mobbing crows, a good sign that the birds will be circling an owl (or hawk) squatting in a tree in their territory.

Only time and experience can give you the discriminating ear of the true woodsperson. It is a learning process, a listening process, a learning-some-more process. And there’s no time like now — when spring sparkles with the songs and sounds of renewal — to sit down, stay still, and perk up your ears.

Calls of the Wind

Spring
Eee-o-lay!
Wood thrush
“Whenever a man hears it he is young, and Nature is in her spring,” wrote Henry David Thoreau.
When and where: mixed woods at dawn and dusk; eastern half of the United States.
Listen 

Phweeeeeeet!
Groundhog
Among spring’s earliest-emerging mammals is the ever-hungry groundhog or woodchuck, also called “whistle pig” for the quick, sharp whistle it produces when alarmed.
When and where: daylight hours in open fields and hedgerows, usually near cultivated crops; Northeast, Midwest, upper south United States, and southern Canada.
Listen

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