Snorts and Hoots

I have a few CDs that are a mixture of nature’s sounds and instrumental music. They’re called things like “Loon Summer” or “Yellowstone Nights” and have the usual sounds: rivers, rain, thunder, wind, bird songs, plus a few snorts, cackles, and howls thrown in. I don’t listen to them a lot, but I do go through phases when that’s my background noise of choice. I get some strange looks when someone walks into my office just as an elk is bellowing out his mating call. I used to try to explain to my visitor what the CD was all about. Now I just say, “What? Never heard an elk mating call before?” I’ve found that bluffing my way through life works pretty well, and this situation is no different. I just act like elk snorts are normal office music and anyone who doesn’t recognize that fact is obviously an environmentally-insensitive barbarian. It’s a strategy that works only occasionally, but it’s quicker than giving the full explanation. And if people walk away with the impression that I’m a bit eccentric, I consider that one of the privileges of aging.

Of course, we get many of those sounds for free during those mild days of spring and fall when we can sleep with our windows open at night. That’s one of the many joys of living in a rural area. The owls, coyotes, and whip-poor-wills let us know that they are out there, doing whatever it is they do until the sun rises again.

I’ve heard stories about people from the city who visit their country relatives and can’t sleep at night because it’s either too quiet or the night-time noises are unfamiliar. Their primary contact with nature during a typical week is scurrying across the parking lot from their car to the office, so their idea of “the sounds of nature” is a bit different from us small town folks. I wonder if there’s a market for CDs featuring loud music overlaid with the sounds of traffic, police sirens, domestic disturbances, public drunkenness, and gunshots. We could keep a copy on hand for when our friends from Atlanta or Nashville come to visit; you know, just to make them feel at home and to help them get a good night’s sleep.

Every summer my buddies and I do a little night fishing, so we have to fish by sound. We spend a lot of time standing quietly, listening for a trout to make a noise as he feeds on insects floating on the surface of the river. We are usually listening so intently that we don’t hear much else. All our energy is focused on distinguishing the river turbulence from a fish’s splash, but at times when there’s no fish activity, the other night sounds become noticeable.

For the most part, the outdoors is quiet at night, but during these moments of stillness we begin to notice a few background noises: the croaks of frogs (big ones at the water’s edge, small ones in the trees), the splashes of beavers and muskrats, the whir of mayflies fluttering by, the conversations of owls. To me, there’s something about the calls of the owls that is haunting. Of course, lots of things seem haunting at night, but the owls are like disembodied woodland spirits, forest dwellers who are comfortable in the dark, unlike me who never quite gets his bearings in the black of night.

One very common owl in the eastern US, from the Gulf of Mexico to Canada, is the Barred Owl. This owl gives a classic owl hoot but with a very distinctive, non-hooting, closing note of “awl.” Peterson describes it as, “Who cooks for you? Who cooks for you all?” The words “who cooks for you” are the hoots. The “you all” at the end is a non-hooting moan. But this is one that Peterson doesn’t get quite right, and it’s something that is obvious to a Southerner. The Barred Owl doesn’t end his call with “you all.” He ends it, very distinctly, with “ya’ll.” He says, “Who cooks for you? Who cooks for ya’ll?” The ya’ll at the end is very clearly (at least to my ears) a one syllable ya’ll, not a two syllable you all. I’m sorry, but as a Southerner I just had to set the record straight.

I once asked a girl from Massachusetts to listen to a recording of the Barred Owl. She thought the call was “you all,” not “ya’ll.” Personally, I think she was just being stubborn; that, or maybe them Yankees just don’t hear too good.

Ya’ll have a good night, full of snorts and hoots.