timeThe sounds of our natural world are changing dramatically. In less than 50 years, the number of wildlife on Earth has plummeted by 69%. Gone with it are many unique natural soundscapes: the calls of nocturnal mammals, the morning chorus of birds and the buzz of insects.
This global story is stitched together by many local stories of loss. We talked to our readers about how natural sounds are changing the places they live.
wattWhen I was a teenager in the nineties, I used to sneak out and go to rave parties. I used to get home around six in the morning and always hated the noise from the birds outside my window. Even after 12 hours of loud electronic music, the chirping of birds still kept me awake.
After 15 years as a photographer in the United States, I have just temporarily moved back to my childhood bedroom in Munich’s commuter belt. Now when I open the window there is almost no noise. There were no birds at all.
It’s a horrific reminder of what we’ve lost in such a short period of time. When I was 16, you were driving from one town to the next and you needed to clean your windshield. Now you can drive down the highway for seven hours and see nothing. There were only blackbirds and sparrows in our garden. Other birds were so rare that my parents were horrified when they saw them.
Now I miss those early morning bird calls, but I don’t think they’ll ever come back.
Oliver Feigl, Munich, Germany
medium sizeIn 1985, my husband and I built our house in the woods of New Brunswick. When the sun rises on spring and summer mornings, the piercing chirping of birds is so loud that we have to close our bedroom windows to get another hour or two of sleep. I’m not a birder, but over the years my family has noticed a variety of warblers, thrushes, sparrows, and thrushes.
That thing ended a long time ago. I think I really noticed the difference in the early 2000s, when our daughter was about to go off to college. Migratory songbirds in particular seem to be disappearing. Yes, my hearing may not be as good as it was 40 years ago, but honestly, the difference in volume and song variety is devastating to the experience. I fear that the world we leave to our children and grandchildren will be a very different place.
Debra McKale, New Brunswick, Canada
timeThere was a beautiful cherry tree in my parents’ garden that used to be buzzing with bees. It looks like a bride when it blooms with stunning white flowers. It’s like standing under a beehive. When I was a child, I was afraid of insects, but now that I’m 42, I know there’s nothing to be afraid of.
Whenever I feel pessimistic about the future, looking at this tree allows me to temporarily pretend everything is normal. But now for several years in a row, the tree is blooming a month earlier than before, before the bees showed up. Occasionally, there will be a lone bee in the tree, but this is rare. Every day I walked under that cherry blossom tree in full bloom, hoping to hear the buzz of the tree, only to be disappointed.
This tree was planted by my grandfather 55 years ago. He loves nature. If he were here today, I think he would be walking around shaking his head. One day I will take over this garden and I wonder what types of plants I can grow when I am older. When the world seems to be moving in the wrong direction, it would be nice if some things stayed the same, especially the things that really matter.
Jana Hudkova, Bratislava, Slovakia
I Missing the fruity song of blackbirds singing in the nearby trees at night. The twitching sound of nipples. The buzz of insect life. I am absolutely shocked and saddened by the complete disappearance of swifts, swallows, goldfinches and other garden birds (feeders notwithstanding).
I am 89 years old and this is a far cry from my childhood memories, when cuckoos always heralded the arrival of summer warmth and swifts and swallows were a common part of the summer scene. I remember the title of a book (that I had never read): Silent Spring, by Rachel Carson. Are the prophecies she wrote about this time?
Reader from Essex, UK
I Miss the sound of the bullfinch. Before we see them in the garden we usually hear their sweet single whistle and I always know they are about to arrive. They usually come in pairs, and I find there’s something comforting and old-fashioned about that.
We’ve lived here for 30 years and they’ve been here since the beginning. They could stick together for life, and it was comforting to think of them raising children together, just like we did in this house. My wife remembers watching them eat sunflower seeds in the garden as she fed our daughter Emily. She and our son Ben love watching them.
Looking back at the garden birdwatching I do for the British Trust for Ornithology, I see that from 2003 to 2020 they were regularly observed for over 15 weeks per year. Slowly, their numbers began to decrease, and over the past four years, remarkably, they did not visit us at all in 2023. The purpose has changed. I’m not sure, but I miss them and wonder where they went.
Peter Gray, Chesterfield, UK
I Born in 1982, lived in Norwich, East England until the age of 25. Although I am not a birdwatcher, I am familiar with the songs and calls of many species and enjoy listening to the blackbirds and robins in our garden. Yet it was only recently that I realized that my childhood experience of hearing birdsong was severely lacking compared to when I was growing up in the 1950s. Since the war, the numbers of nightingales and turtle doves have plummeted by more than 90%.
This decline is so dramatic that most people, myself included, have never heard the enchanting songs of these summer visitors. But even scarier is the fact that most people, including myself, don’t realize these species are disappearing. Their destruction was so rapid and complete that we simply forgot they ever existed.
Alex Smalley, Cornwall, UK
CUrus. My favorite sound in the world is the sound of Cumbria. They should be calling in the fields here this time of year when they come inland to breed. Just 15 years ago you would have heard dozens of these voices. I’ve only heard one heartbreaking call of loneliness in the night this year. There is no wilder sound than the curlew, and with every such loss we lose the uniqueness of the place that inspires us to care about it. You can’t love something that doesn’t exist.
Heidi Bewley, Cumbria, UK
I Have lived in Skene for 35 years. When we first moved in, there were several pairs of swallows nesting under the eaves of the farmhouse and in various outhouses. Last year there were only a couple. I miss their chirping when they first arrived and as they hunted insects high and low.
Len Barnes,Tjrnarp,Skne county, Sweden
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