Noises in the Night

Night in The Dales, indeed in most of the UK we’ve visited so far, has been anything but quiet. So unlike many of the nights around where we live where all we usually hear is the faint sound of a waterfall a mile across the lake.

Nocturnal noises naturally include sheep bleating and new lambs baaaa-ing. This never really seems to stop, day or night. Last night, a few cows added to the farm field cacophony. Near our tent a pair of pheasants seems to have made its territory, and the cock lets loose with his rusty gate call every 15 minutes or so, accompanied with a brief but rapid flapping of wings. We heard the pair walking by early in the morning, both making quiet pheasant clucking noises to each other.

There are at least a couple of species of doves, and they never shut up. They are easy to tell apart from their calls, but they are very monotonous all the same. The Wood Dove, the largest of the doves that I’ve seen, just repeats the same set of phrases over and over, with some individuals stopping/starting at slightly different places in the phrases. I’m actually starting to get a wee bit tired of all their billing and cooing, well, the cooing mostly.

Then there are the sounds of other birds, chirping away during the night or flapping their way through the branches. I have no idea what they are. Critters in the night.