Walking around Stocker’s Lake early in the morning, I have often thought how quiet and calm it was. Rarely do you hear the noise of cars, and the frantic sounds of modern life are left behind in the car park.
You do get a few joggers, some of whom you hear coming up behind you as they are chatting, some are just panting, while others are so quiet that they are upon you almost before you realise it.
You hear the occasional pairs or groups of people talking, or a solitary person on a phone talking louder than necessary, and of course you get a few dogs barking, but until recently I generally thought about how quiet it was.
It was on a walk a couple of months ago I realised just how wrong I was.
That morning I was struck by the symphony of birdsong, or in some cases bird calls as I’m not sure you would call the noises some birds make as ‘song’.
Some were quieter, and some actually pretty loud.
Tiny little wrens make an awful lot of noise.
Some of the birdsong was occasional and some more constant like the background musical landscape of gulls, and the often regular honking of Canada Geese.
As I thought more about it, I realized just how few of calls I recognized and how much more I need to learn.
I soon started to notice other noises and sounds, the rustle of leaves and reeds, the splash of rushing water.
By one set of reeds I got out my phone and recorded the song of warbler – you can listen here
And like me perhaps you’ll now realise silence can be noisy, or to borrow the words of Paul Simon sometimes you can hear “the sound of silence”.
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