Sound Blog

miles and minutes of wind and leaves · May 14, 2005 by Matt Gilbert

Most of the time when I add an entry to this blog, it’s because I heard something big, I mean really big. This is one of those entries. I went camping this weekend and had an incredible time. One of the best moments, aside from being with some great friends, was being silent while everyone else was asleep. I haven’t heard a forest in a while, especially in the mountains. The animals in the forest have so much control over the sounds they make; they are silent when they want to be, and they are loud when they call to each other. I’m pretty sure I heard an owl hooting from far away, then that same owl attack something on the forest floor, then the same owl parked in a closer tree and hooting again a bit later. I can’t be sure because the owl was silent in between these events; the flight leading up to the attack, and the flight away from the attack. I had to make up the story in between. The more interesting sound, the big sound, was the wind. Since the leaves were dry and falling off of the trees, they rustled loudly with the wind, meaning I could hear a gust of wind coming from miles away. I could hear something coming, and it would take several minutes for it to slowly get louder and louder until finally it was rushing over our tents and dropping leaves over us. It seemed to help that we were set up at a bend around the mountain, which seems to whip the wind around, making it speed up.

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