all around you
all the time
Open your ears and close your eyes.
cow
“Mooo,” said the cow. I was surprised. I think of myself as a very good listener and I must say that in general, cows do not moo. Cows low. There’s a difference.
N’wait, I’ll give you this. Some cows moo. You can actually hear the “m” sound. But in the end (the front end,) cows low.
Also, listen closely. Some cows just complain. That’s when they set their low to high.
bull
Bulls are cows.
Bulls will bellow. (Saul will Bellow too, but that’s such a bad joke I won’t even mention it.) The bellow sounds a bit like me learning to play the trumpet in fourth grade. There is clearly a message in the bellow of a bull: “Don’t mess with me, sailor.”
owl
They hoot. I’ve been asked if rather than hooting, they “hoo.” Not sure if they can make that plosive “T” sound.
Great Horned Owls advertise their territories with deep, soft hoots with a stuttering rhythm: hoo-h’HOO-hoo-hoo. The male and female of a breeding pair may perform a duet of alternating calls, with the female’s voice recognizably higher in pitch than the male’s.
There’s more to owl sounds than just “hoo, hoo” or “hoot, hoot.” Each species of owl has its own unique call — sometimes more than one. If you’ve heard mysterious, vaguely theremin-type sounds around your neighborhood at night, you’re listening to owls.
Nighttime hooting? Territorial claim or warning of danger or possibly, hopeful: “Let’s get it on!”
Owls chitter, they laugh, certainly they screech. The barred owl proclaims, “Who cooks for you?” Speaking English is impressive, when done by a bird. (When done by some humans too.)
Young owls give piercing screams when begging for food while adults may scream to defend their nest. Adults make an array of other sounds, including whistles, barks, shrieks, hisses, coos and wavering cries. They also whistle, chirp and grunt.
From a distance, an owl might sound like a screaming child. It’s not very pleasant. No need to investigate.
The great horned owl’s hoot is generally unmistakable. A common pattern is a longer hoooooot, followed by two or three shorter hoots. These owls have a range of other vocalizations, some of which sound like barks or a screeching cat.
This little tidbit isn’t about their sound but it’s fascinating nonetheless. An owl’s eyes weigh up to 5% of its body weight. By comparison, human eyes weigh about 0.0003% of our body weight. That’s proportionately more than 16 000 times as heavy.
An owl is the wisest of all birds because the more it sees the less it talks.
— Christie Watson
I am both a night owl and an early bird. So I am wise and I have worms.
— Michael Scott
stegosaurus
You know, of course, that there are currently no living stegosauruses. But there used to be. This one is made of fiberglass. If it could vocalize, it would rumble, it would bellow, it would sound raggedy like it had a four-day dry throat. Its call would be staccato, persistent and not of great vocal range. Although if it starts the sound deep within, it would shake the walls.
However, new research on a particular 78 000 002 year-old fossil of this species reveals a voice box shaped to produce bird-like sounds.
donkey
Take the donkey. They bray. By definition, they bray. But what’s a bray? Donkeys do not have a pretty voice. Their bray is part squeaky barn door hinge, part party horn.
goat
Goats bleat. This represents as a staccato voice, sometimes at a high pitch like a heavy bird, sometimes at a low pitch, like a bowling ball.
Now, two fish. First…
axolotl
Never heard of it? It’s a type of salamander. They’re cute. Generally quiet, which is maybe why you haven’t heard of them. They squeak when breaking the water surface, when they grab a bite of air. It’s as quick as a stolen kiss, or a peck on the cheek anyway, and it sounds like “HEET!” or “EET!.”
The other fish is the…
humuhumunukunukuapuaa
N’wait, you never heard of this one either? It’s the state fish of Hawai`i. It’s fun to say that “humuhumunukunukuapuaa” is the longest word in the Hawaiian language. But it isn’t. The longest word is “Lauwiliwilinukunukuʻoiʻoi” which means “long-snouted fish shaped like a wiliwili leaf.” But you probably knew that.
Back to the humuhumunukunukuapuaa. This name means ‘trigger fish with a snout like a pig.” It may also mean, “fish that grunts like a pig,” because when distressed or threatened, the humu makes an audible grunting sound that can be heard underwater. Or maybe it really is a pig down there.
Naah.
jackalope
Strangely, jackalopes are not known for a particular animalistic, or even mammalian vocalism. Rather, they have an uncanny ability to reproduce, or mimic, the sounds produced by others. In the Old West, for example, when on the range, cowboys would sing to their cattle. The jackalopes, staying hidden in the brush, would join in. At first the cowboys thought their cows were harmonizing with them but then they realized how dumb that was.
Sometimes when pursued, a jackalope might imitate one of the hunters by saying, “Hey! He went thataway.”
gopher
Rub a balloon. There’s your gopher.
Their short squeaky high whistle-like pitch is cute for about half a minute. Then they can get quite annoying, unless you too are a gopher.