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Coming out of the winter silence– a silence so deep that one can hear the sound of one’s own nervous system– slowly nature’s musicians warm up in Spring. Gradually they gather and by summer we are hearing the full orchestra of the wilderness. There are so many sounds, one might talk of layers of sound.
Distant sounds waft through the air like a bank of clouds floating towards us. We hear the raucous cry of a murder of crows flying over some carrion far off in the forest. We hear the dogs down the road barking at some intruder into their world. From deep inside the dark woods comes the unmistakable throaty call of a turkey. And from the field across the way, the cooing of a dove.
And then the sounds of nearness, so familiar perhaps we no longer notice them: The wind blowing through the dark green summer leaves, each type of tree with its distinctive rustle. The chirping of sparrows and other frequenters of the back yard. The whine of a pair of grackles. The frequent complaint of the ever-present blue jay. The crystalline voice of a yellow warbler singing an aria. The plaintiff cries of a gaggle of geese flying far above. While in a nest under the eaves fledglings squeak waiting to be fed.
Bumblebees buzz across the lawn, miraculously defying gravity with their weight and size. They mix with the menacing whirr of wasps in a huge nest overhead. Flies and mosquitos hum literally in our ears as the occasional vibrating zum of a humming bird, jewel-like in the sun, flies around in the Joe Pie Weed. Dragon and damsel flies whizz by and hover in the air, occasionally even landing on us. All this reaches our ears above the constant background drone of crickets and cicadas.
As the day progresses, the late afternoon brings the intermittent twang of wood frogs hidden in the bushes, calling to each other from all directions. It seems we are surrounded by wood frogs and tree frogs who have replaced the frenetic, unceasing peeps of the spring peepers. Bird song reaches a crescendo and then dies down to silence for the night. The day sounds are replaced at night by the haunting hoo-hoo of a very close, but invisible, owl. The occasional crying baby sound of a bobcat cuts through the cricketed silence, and in the full moon the poignant howling of coyote fills the black night air, illuminated by silent fireflies.
And then there are the sounds of man and his machines. Noise pollution. Lawn tractors, airplanes, cars on the road, all terrain vehicles, weed wackers, motorcycles, trucks, lawn mowers, steam shovels. The list continues and grows in strength drowning out nature’s sounds of summer. With natural habitat dwindling, all the creatures of the wilderness are dying out or moving to last holds of their breeding grounds. Villages have become cities, masses of land covered in concrete and asphalt and steel, punctuated by tiny pockets of manicured nature.
Certain species of frog are becoming extinct around the world. The bee populations are dwindling leaving us to wonder who will pollinate the flowers. And the songbirds are dying out. Conservation biologist, Bridget Stutchbury in her book, Silence of the Songbirds, says this is partially due to habitat loss and predation but she believes the real culprit is pesticides. She says we are losing barn swallows, Eastern kingbirds, Kentucky warblers, bobolinks and wood thrushes. Pesticide can kill 7 to 25 songbirds per acre of application. As Stutchbury says we can stop this destruction by buying local and organic produce, in-season food and shade-grown coffee. As she points out, the balance of ecosystems is at stake because birds eat the caterpillars that fell forests. “If you take birds out of the forest, bugs are going to win.”
Though the current state of affairs looks grim there are activities one can do online to safeguard the future of the wilderness and its inhabitants. On one website you can click for free every day to give food and aid to animals. The address is http://www.animalrescuesite.com. On other websites, if you click on the “take action” button you can become involved in lobbying for animal rights and conservation of the wilderness with a modicum of effort, signing a letter, for example. And although you absolutely don’t have to, you can always make a donation. A select group follows …
http://www.sierraclub.org (The Sierra Club)
http://animallegaldefensefund.org (The Animal Legal Defense Fund)
http://farmsanctuary.com (The Farm Sanctuary)
http://www.peta.org (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals)
http://humanesociety.org (The Humane Society)
http://defendersofwildlife.com (Defenders of Wildlife)
Add your voice to the sounds of summer, speak for those who can not, and insure the future of the symphonies of summer.
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Welcome to samples of my work in various art forms showcasing “Eye-locks and Other Fearsome Things.” “Eye-locks” is a Bipolar/Asperger’s memoir in narrative form that describes the triumph of love over mental illness.