I tried an experiment via YouTube this week – jury’s still out, but I’m discovering that either 1) People don’t think this is as cool/interesting as I do, or 2) People are just ignoring me. Still, I have a few people who have expressed interest and promised to play along… so we’ll see. I have to admit I’m surprised by the lack of response.
But here’s the thing – when the Sun goes down at my house, it gets noisy. Very noisy. The exact nature of the noise is different in the spring than the fall… and right now, it’s a cacophony of (mostly) katydids, crickets, and gray tree frogs.
A month or so ago, I was in the Jersey Pine Barrens, just north of Atlantic City, for a week. Long enough to know that what I experienced wasn’t a fluke of weather. And what I noticed was – silence. I mean absolute, shockingly still silence, such that I could occasionally hear a bullfrog a quarter-mile away. It was, to my daily experience here in the mid-Atlantic, weird.
So this just piqued my curiosity. What I asked folks to do was simply share a sound-byte of what they heard at night. Some have told me that they too hear silence, and that a recording would be pretty boring. A few have actually shared their experience, and those (so far) are very similar to my experience – but I fear most people are thinking the same of me — “weird”. 🙂
If you’re interested, here’s my raw, unfiltered, typical night at home. I’d be curious to hear, or at least get a description of, what the #NightMusic sounds like in your neck of the woods.
And in case you don’t think this is weird – here’s the playlist. Hopefully it will grow over the next week.
Get Out There!
Flying Squirrel Outdoors 
I shall record one tonight
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Great, i know you’re not a Tuber (at least you don’t look like a potato), so send me an audio file and I’ll make a quick vid post of it. Thanks!
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Wow. This is a great idea. I wrote a draft of an article about this sort of thing a couple weeks ago. I’m not sure what I’ll do with it,but it’s interesting we had similar ideas. I’ve noticed the noises near where I live have changed a bunch in recent weeks. I’ll try to record one this weekend.
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Great! Do you mind if i were to link it from the YouTube playlist? If you’re on YouTube just post something and add it. If not, I’ll happily take an audio file and put something out there (if you don’t mind). Appreciate you sharing!
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Hey, absolutely. I’ll try again to get i tonight. Totally cool with me.
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Here’s mine, from a half hour or so ago. I’m going to write up my own post and point back to yours when I can.
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Awesome, thanks Scott! Ill make sure this is added to the list. Appreciate it!
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You aren’t weird by my definition. Don’t stop whatever motivates you.
As to night sounds, I have a note on the table to remind me. We have a wooded area behind us with the usual insects. Every few days a Barred Owl or two come by for a hoot-fest. Recent one: https://ourviewfromiowa.wordpress.com/2018/08/30/barred-owl-visit/
There are neighborhood dogs that send messages by barking. Interstate 80 is a mile from us. If the weather is right, we hardly hear traffic. If wrong, we hear it a lot.
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My son-in-law is a rocket scientist in MD. I was a HS physics teacher 38 yrs. Nerds are gr8.
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Indeed! My license plate used to read “AOE Geek”. AOE = Aerospace and Ocean Engineering. 😁 Still doing that stuff, also in Maryland.
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Good for you. SIL works with GOES.
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Ah, up at Goddard? Explains the Bowie/Patuxent proximity. I’m 1.5 hours south, Navy Pax River.
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All of that is wonderful, except the Interstate! 😁 I’m one of those people who sleep with the window open all year – at least cracked a tad so I can hear wind, rain, owls, bugs, raccoons attacking my bird feeder…
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Same raccoon as the one that attacks ours? Probably not. 🙂
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Im guessing not, but they’re pretty relentless.
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Our biggest feeder is kind of heavy, hung on a rope just out of reach, held by a carabiner clip. It was able to release it from the clip and drop it to the ground. I have trouble doing that with my own hands.
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Yeah it’s amazing the problem- solving skills they have.
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This is a really awesome project! I hope you get a lot of recordings. In my neighborhood, we’re a little too close to the highway, so all I hear is traffic noise. There’s also some railroad tracks nearby, so occasionally I hear a train. Not a lot of nature noises, though. I think the wildlife knows to keep its distance.
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You’ve probably got a surprising number of raccoons, rabbits, etc that just keep a low profile. I was hoping for more folks jumping in on this too, we’ll see!
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Well, yes. There are three rabbits who come nibble on my yard, but they’re not making a whole lot of noise.
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😂
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I was wrong. There are some noisy crickets in this neighborhood. I guess I just never noticed them before. Thanks for inspiring me to get out there and listen!
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Cool, thanks for letting me know!
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