Sounds

Judy.  Anyplace you live or go has its own set of sounds. In Athens, it was the sound of neighbors walking by, the young hawk screeching, cars racing by late at night, robins and doves waking us in the morning. 

While some of the sounds here in Uvita are familiar—the construction going on next door, cars on the gravel outside our gate, the occasional dog bark—there are others that I’ll always associate with our sojourn here. Late at night, and far too early in the morning, Jessie, our resident coatimundi (so named by a grandson in Georgia) climbs around our tin roof to bed down or get up from her nest in the eaves. Toucans greet the morning with their call, “Dios te da!” (God gives to you!). Yellow-breasted kiskadees sing “Que guay!” (How cool!) throughout the day.

Kiskadee

Early mornings, late afternoons, and sometimes midday, howler monkeys scream out, “Get off my lawn!” (No Spanish translation available.) Clay-colored thrushes, the national bird, sing a theme song from a 60’s sitcom, and the cicadas chime in as they feel the need. 

 From 8 AM till noon, we hear the whisper of the pool pump, and now and again hear doves with the same call we learned in Arizona, “Who cooks for you?” 

Afternoons sometimes bring a beautiful set of scarlet macaws, whose obvious wooing is marred by their horrific screeching, reminding us so much of a bickering couple that we’ve named them Fred and Ethel. The grey-cowled wood rails, on the other hand have a mating ritual that sounds like an opera duet. 

Grey-cowled wood rail

Some weekends a family descends on the house behind us, and the sounds of laughter, singing, and shouting fills the air. Now that we’re entering the rainy season, we hear the evening patter of rain, or, occasionally, a downpour so loud we have to put closed captioning on tv. Once in awhile, there are serious claps of thunder. 

 Always, always there’s the quiet sound of the surf, a quarter mile away, pounding in the background. 

 Not a bad playlist at all.