I-Spy....Sounds

They don't have to conjure up memories - just a sound that starts with the letter...........like Bees or Breeze or Brass Band.........

C has got to be cuckoo . It’s great when they turn up in spring. It’s almost like a competition to see who hears one first in the village.

C

Combining the harvest, the thrum of the combine harvesters is redolent of the height of summer. I too like to hear the cuckoo but haven't heard one around our way for years. You think you've heard one then it turns out to be a bloody pigeon!

C is the Clucking of Chickens
There are excited clucks (found a worm), laying egg clucks, go away clucks, friendly clucks and so on.
My neighbour (Bill) was a psychiatrist with a stressful day job. He used to come here to spend some time, listening to the chickens as he found the clucks so relaxing. We left a voice activated tape recorder in the coop overnight and filled the tape with clucks. You wouldn't believe how delighted Bill was to have this tape. He'd play it in the car (that tells you how long ago this happened) and in his office/consulting room. Apparently, some of his patients also found it relaxing!
I miss my chooks but won't have more now - I've given away all the equipment. The chook chapter has closed.

D is for all the weird and wonderful sounds dogs make. Continues barking drives me nuts! (Next doors boy) . But a couple of barks to let you know someone has arrived is fine. FYI my boys don’t do this. Breeze only usually barks at other blond dogs, skew bark at all farm vehicles that go past , bin men, postman, anyone jogging (seems reasonable), anyone walking other dogs.
People walking through the gate……absolute silence!
Dog dreams and snoring, the very vocal good morning squeaks and squeals, the whining when they’re (breeze) aren’t getting things there own way or it’s not being done quick enough (like going for the morning walk). Then there’s the noise when tails are wagging. Especially in a caravan, everything gets turned into a drum ! Even the sound of them drinking is different. Breeze drinks in 3s .

D

Doves. This summer a small flock of white rock pigeons (we call them doves) have taken to sitting on next door's roof and cooing enthusiastically. In the heat they would shelter from the sun underneath their solar panels, still cooing and attempting to nest. Their cooing is totally different from feral pigeons (which I dislike intensly), a soft coo coo with a rolling of their rrr's. I love to see and hear these quaint birds, i wish they would come down to be fed, but the new neighbours (the scorched earth townies), really dislike them, so much so that they have put netting all around the edges of the solar panels to stop them. Now the summer has gone they don't appear that often or maybe the net put them off. They don't seem to like our roof half as much.

I've no idea why they moved to the country, if it's green they want to chop it down, if it walks the dog chases it. Having said that though she very proudly sent us a photo of a cock pheasant peering into their back patio doors, probably either admiring his reflection or more likely trying to fight it off as an interloper on his territory.

D is for Dawn Chorus..............and Dusk Chorus!!
I can't pretend to be up, out of bed and raring to go when the dawn chorus starts but, just lying there, listening to the birds singing their little heads off is such a good way to start the day. Its spring, the sun has risen and its not raining. All's right in my world.

E unsurprisingly is for elephants. The low deep rumbling sound they make to communicate with each other is incredible. When they actually make that noise because they’ve seen you is very special.

^^^ That's a very special E sound. Must have been wonderful to have such a bond with these beautiful animals.
I did feed a baby elephant with a giant bottle of milk once, at the Elephant Orphanage in Sri Lanka. He had such long eyelashes, I'd never thought about elephants having eyelashes before!!

E is for Effervescence...............especially the fizzing, bubbling noise made by..........not champagne bottles but Alka Seltzer and Steradent!! Reminds me of a couple of people long gone.
As for the champagne, I won a bottle in a raffle, when I was about 18 and living at home. I kept it for Boxing Day but my parents didn't drink (apart from the odd sherry) and they had no suitable champagne glasses, so I poured mine into a tumbler!! I took my glass upstairs for some reason, but on the way up, my Christmas present, bright pink, fluffy slippers caught on the stair rod and I tripped. Put my arm out to stop my fall and fell, face first onto the tumbler of champagne!!
I spent the rest of Boxing Day at A&E having my lip stitched. I remember lying on the table, looking at my bright pink slippers & the doctor leaning over me with mistletoe in his hat. I still have the scar!!