The Living World Through an Audible Lens

       Sound is not the sense most often associated with empirical observation. Why have we forgotten about this important tool of experiencing our world? Many of us rely on this sense every day for communicating not to mention our very human and undying love for music. On the other hand, often we are bombarded with sound, noise really, that overwhelms our very senses and leaves us looking for any quiet corner of creation. Here’s a thought: What if we were able to stick solely to our sense of sound and see, no hear, what comes of this? This spring I decided to do just this and found huge complexities in the sounds of the natural world I otherwise would have let pass unnoticed.

            Sounds and noises greatly influence our moods from relaxed to happy to stressful. We are unknowingly exposed to noises all day long. Distinguishing between sounds and noises is vital in addressing them. I will define a sound as a positive and enjoyable detection by the ears, one that in one way or another is expressive or communicative. Conversely a noise is an unwanted and repulsive sound that is drained of expressive or communicative life. However, defining a specific noise is subjective to the ears of the listener. There are often noises such as squeaking brakes and ambulance sirens that we can generally agree are far from pleasant and purely mechanical. These piercing noises spill into the natural world and can ruin human experience of that world, not to mention disrupt its many workings. Thoreau writes, “You couldn’t even hear the whistle! I doubt if there is such a place in Massachusetts now” (Walden; or, Life in the Woods). Train whistles may have become obsolete, but we now have more constant and deeper penetrating sounds of helicopters and airplanes. I myself am guilty of producing and participating in these noises, as is most every other human on the face of the earth. Driving a car, flying in a plane or helicopter, ringing of an alarm clock, the beep of a horn. The human noisescape has grown to become nearly endless. These noises are almost impossible to get away from and will ruin or negatively impact our minute and shrinking experiences of pure nature. It can also lead to the blocking of our thoughts. On the other hand a voice or sound can promote and progress our thinking and ability to hear our own thinking.    

            It’s a brisk Friday afternoon at the Hazel Outdoor Discovery Center in a light rain… I reach the area around the pond and shut my eyes in hopes of enhancing my hearing and allowing me to better focus on this single sense. First thing my ears pick up is rain. This is an unmistakable sound with varying rhythm too offbeat to be confused with the sound of a showerhead. This sound of rain is fully encompassing me, something I cannot get away from. This has led me to become completely still and fully absorbing my world through sounds. Bam! There it is. I knew it would come, but so quickly after intently listening? Neeaaowww! It is the awful and easily recognizable thundering of an airplane shooting across the sky above, visibly hidden by the clouds but nonetheless disruptively making itself heard. The sound of the airplane lingers nearly a minute after. The farther away it gets, the more it’s starting to sound like faint thunder. Could animals possibly confuse these two?
          I have come to understand that human noises can affect the lives of other creatures all across the wildlife spectrum. It has been found that helicopter noises can lead longhorn sheep to “a forty-three percent reduction in foraging efficiency” (Radle 7). The Desert Kangaroo Rat has its defenses ruined by the rumbling of dune buggy engines. They rely on acute hearing to alert them of the preying Sidewinder Rattlesnakes. The dune buggies’ “engine noise deafens the rat and virtually eliminates its defensive hearing” leaving them extremely vulnerable (Radle 8). The Bald Eagle, a native species to Maryland, will avoid nesting in areas where airplane noises are too intense. Near a Denver airport “the noise of the aircraft was effectively driving up to thirty bald eagles from their roosting site” (Radle 8). These are only a few known negative effects, but I imagine there to be many unknown. Although I realize that noise impact is a difficult aspect to study, I believe it should be taken more seriously into account.

            I open my eyes briefly and then, closing them, become immersed in sounds again. Patters on the leaf litter from the water falling off branches are the most prominent sounds. The drops of rain tapping the pond are much softer and more dynamic. This is not merely one sound but at least two. The first comes as the rain hits the waters surface. And another follows as the pond welcomes the rain past the surface and absorbs it into itself.

            I then hear a steady wall of sound, almost like it is coming after me. First behind me and then passes and continues in front while trailing off. The gentle but firm push of wind comes curving and twisting through trees. Pushing branches and pine needles out of its way and wrapping around the sturdier tree trunks. The forest is absorbing the power of the wind. I wonder if the trees enjoy the wind, surely they wouldn’t like sitting still all the time. But then a tree might have a view on this matter altogether different than my own mammalian take on it.  I also begin to wonder about the difference in wind sound from a coniferous dominated forest to a forest dominated by more broad-leafed trees. I would imagine these would be two very different sounds. Each of these sounds representing the life of something significant.

            I reflect: I am my own noise pollution. I remember the sounds of my boots clumsily breaking twigs and squashing the soft ground as I arrived. I was unknowingly creating noise that I had previously taken no care to halt. I’m sure I alerted the animals of my presence long ago. I wish I were more… There it is again. Interrupted by the unruly sound of an airplane, reminding me I am not far enough from the clumsy and thoughtless human civilization. Reminding me I can hardly get away from these industrious noises ruining my interaction with the living world for more than 15 minutes, a tough realization.

            Tap! Tap! Tap! I then hear the echoing repeated tap of a Pileated Woodpecker (Hylatomus pileatus). These are large crow-sized woodpeckers, the big ones of the clan, who create a more forceful and penetrating tapping sound than any of the smaller woodpecker species. I enjoy this sound affirming the existence of its creator and giving me confirmation that I have been in the presence of a Pileated Woodpecker. Brooks Onley states that these birds listen intently to decomposing trees. What would they be listening for? He answers that they are attempting to locate the grubs and insects inside the tree eating and foraging around. I was blown away by this fact. The tiny sound of the grubs led me to think about the scale of sounds. An airplane produces a massive sound heard for miles while these grubs produce such a tiny sound that the woodpeckers must have their ears as close as possible to detect them.  What happens to a woodpecker, then, when his acute sensitivity to sound encounters the noisy excesses of human machines?

            Woody Woodpecker is a well-known cartoon character audibly symbolized by his laugh. He shares many characteristics with the Pileated Woodpecker. This “laugh” is a distinct voice that I frequently hear and now assures me in its very arrival that I am in environs of this bird. The voice of a creature is important to discern from the general sounds such as flying and flapping its wings. Living creatures create a massive amount of sounds yet their voices are so greatly distinct. An interesting thought because both Woody and the Pileated have identifiable and distinct sounds allowing someone to know who either is solely from a sound, a voice really. I am intrigued by the translation of the Pileated Woodpeckers laugh to the laugh that now symbolizes Woody Woodpecker. I have come to realize the importance of sounds and constants within the sound realm allowing for identification.   

            Back to listening… I then notice changes in the heaviness of the rain. Not by sight or feel, but by the quickening of it’s repeated audible tapping. I am soaking wet and freezing from the constantly falling drops of water. However, I find myself more relaxed now than I have been on my other six adventures here. The mesmerizing powers of the rain’s sound has pulled me away from these physical discomforts and left me with relaxation and a dampening on stresses. Despite the full cup of coffee I just had, I find myself completely calm and gentle in the presence of the soft sound of rain. I think of the rain as a voice speaking for the earth itself. Wind and other elemental sounds verbalize the earth’s processes that create and sustain this vast world of sounds.

            The planes keep sounding every 10-15 minutes, each overflight lasting around one minute. Each plane seems to be louder and stronger than the last. Maybe I am just growing more aware of this unfitting sound. It does not blend in. It sticks out like a sore thumb. Or like a red barn in a field of green grass. My ears are immediately drawn to this sound just as eyes would be to a red barn in a grassy green field. However a red barn is probably a bad comparison, as a barn belongs in a field… or does it not? This noise however, I can assure you, does not belong among these sounds of nature holding meaning and purpose in a way the airplane’s mechanism could never embody.

            I find myself a half hour later still standing in the same exact place right on the pond’s bank. My eyes had been blinking yet staying shut much longer than a normal flick of the eyelids. I reluctantly came back to the visible reality of the world. This mindfulness to the audible world of nature has allowed me to connect with living things in an entirely new dimension. I now hear the beauty in the voices of living creatures. I feel as though I can speak for these voices by understanding the importance. I now appreciate the value of sounds versus noise. I previously felt the visible world had left and that I was in a completely new dimension of pure sound. A dimension, I find, that I really know little about. Hearing is a sense that is sadly often overlooked and unaccounted for.

            I had the pleasure of enjoying a second experience in the forest during a session of rain: Before I can feel or see that it’s raining, I am able to hear the gentle tap of tiny and infrequent raindrops hitting the leaves. Then, the symphony begins. The conductor lifts his wand indicating a crescendo and the rain gets louder and heavier, picking up pace. The booming of the rain has engulfed the entire forest. Another distinctive flick of his wand and the winds begin whooshing through the trees, filling the silences between each drop of rain. The birds continue singing with various tenors and altos among their chirps. This has become a concert performance. The rain is the rhythm, the wind is the brass section and the birds undeniably the choir. No one sound is overpowering, they all seem to work in synchronicity. I am addicted to this relaxing music hoping every second that it is not ruined by the fierce noises of human interference.   

- Dominic DeMarco

                                                                        Bibliography

Thoreau, Henry David, and Edwin Way Teale. Walden; Or, Life in the Woods. New York:            Dodd, Mead, 1946. Print.

Autumn, Radle L. "The Effect of Noise on Wildlife: A Literature Review." (2007): 1-16. Web. 1   May 2015.

Onley, Brooks. Conversation held in March 2015.