The Careful Art of Listening

Image Gallery Red squirrels can be chatterboxes as they play. They’re also known to scold each other (and humans!) with a chrrr sound. BILL LEA

It’s true that we humans tend not to see the forest for the trees. To an even greater extent when we’re outdoors, though, we fail to hear the forest for the seeing. We let our eyes be our guides when sounds, not sights, often provide more information about the life around us, most of it hidden or too distant to see.

The rush of shifting wind through treetops. The gurgle of stream water tumbling over stone. The hmmmm and bzzzzz of insects. The piercing call of a faraway bird. These are only a few of the sounds of the living forest. Some are constant; others fleeting. But all are components in a symphony that is not merely unfinished but perpetual, playing night and day. It is a work ever-in-progress worth listening to, carefully. Nature’s sounds not only soothe our civilized souls, but also tell tales of their makers’ lives.

Hush Up and Listen

You’re not likely to hear — or for that matter, see — wildlife unless you force yourself to take time out from whatever you’re doing outdoors and just sit still, for cryin’ out loud. All too often when I am outdoors the most dominant sound in my ears is the clump-clump-clumping or crunch-crunch-crunching of my own rambling feet. The sad truth is, we humans are a noisy, restless lot. What do most of us do in the great outdoors? We hike, we bike, we fish, we camp, we canoe, we rock climb, we move — almost constantly, and seldom silently. Most of us also carry another kind of noise into the woods with us from civilization: that infernal inner voice nagging us with everyday worries and jangled nerves.

All of that has to go. Remaining still and quiet and actually paying attention to audible nature is an ear-opening experience. But it’s not one that comes to us easily. And here’s the hardest part: You can’t just stop, listen for a few moments and then move on. You have to give the process time — time for you and your gotta-move human nature to settle down and truly tune in to sound, and time for the creatures around you to recover from the alarming cacophonous crashing of your arrival.

Try this the next time you’re outdoors: Look around for a tree with a base sufficiently wide to serve as a back rest and enough level ground beneath to serve as a seat. Make a comfortable cushion of leaves, pine needles or an old shirt, and sit down. Now relax. Never mind listening or watching for anything; just let your muscles go limp. Take easy, deep breaths. Focus entirely on the in and out of your breathing. Don’t let restlessness or thoughts of other matters creep back into your consciousness; stay relaxed and breathe slow and easy. Shhhh. Breathe easy. Relax. Stay still.

The technique may take several minutes (and several tries), but eventually that internal noise of yours will quiet down, and if you remain still the wildlife around you will forgive and forget your crashing. Soon enough the sounds of the forest normal will return. And soon too you will begin to notice the “notes” of individual players in the symphony: a skitter in a treetop; a chick-chick of tiny teeth gnawing on nut or bark; a tap-tap-tap of pointed beak on wood. Let your ears do the locating, then see if your eyes can zero in on the source. Most wildlife is much harder to see than to hear, by virtue of camouflage coloration and patterning, not to mention instinctive adeptness at concealment — a key to survival.