What do you hear when you open your windows at night?

I hear geese. I live near a lake.

There are horses on the other side of the street. Once in a while I will hear a horse.

I will hear cars up the hill, too. At night there are not many cars at all, as I live on a rural route.

From my front window:

The periodic swoosh of cars going by.

People walking by beneath my window, quietly talking and laughing in various languages. This is amplified on weekend nights, when revelers exit the local pubs.

Occasional brief siren blurts by police cars, as they let said revelers know they’re around (there’s a station about two blocks from here).

Rarely, a cat in heat.

It’s too cold now for insects, but there were some singing into the night up until just a few weeks ago. In the daytime, there is a lot of birdsong, but not at night.

From my kitchen window at the rear, I frequently hear low conversation, the clink of glasses, and forks on plates. People tend to cook, eat, and drink on their balconies until late autumn.

On Sundays, underneath all other sounds is the beat of drums from the nearby park, all day and long into the night.

And there are church bells every night at 6pm, of course.

There’s an expressway nearby and it’s a low whoosh. The volume is quiet, it’s not unpleasant, kind of like living near the ocean.

The sound is the constant – I wake up at 3AM and wonder why so many people are outside.

I hear the occasional car on my street. Car pulls up, and parks. Doors shut. Heels click click click on the sidewalk. That’s a nice sound because I know the feeling – “Ahhh, I’m home.”

When I hear a helicopter, I assume there’s a crash on the expressway and the TV news gawkers are on the job.

And I have crickets in the summer.

The sound of the construction site next to my house, from all windows.

I hear some insects I think in the distance, but absolutely nothing else. No manmade sounds what so ever.

I hear Jake brakes as big rigs go down the hill into town.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhCUCxet2a4

Jake brakes, tree frogs and crickets, mostly. I’m at the end of a rural highway.

Crickets, mostly. They even drown out the traffic from the freeway. A few times a month the ghetto bird flies over.

lately it’s been nicer with just the sound of crickets and the occasional car going by. some people must have moved because in the past there has been plenty of yelling at all hours of the night outside the apartments behind us.

Nothing really. We are on a small road with no through traffic. It’s only really people who live here.

So, quite peaceful and it suits me just fine.

But tomorrow (Sat.) morning there’s bound to be one or more noisy leaf blowers or chainsaws. And sometime in the aft. that annoying ice cream truck repeating the same tune ad infinitum :(

@SQUEEKY2 I also hear Jake breaks. We live on a two lane highway near a sharp turn. I enjoy watching the rigs that are all lit up at night. There’s a 3 mile stretch of the highway that I can see from our house and I enjoy the site when I see them coming my way. Makes me feel like a kid.

@Adirondackwannabe No hum from the power supply?

@tinyfaery We had ghetto birds in Vegas. You just brought back some memories for me. I remember a bright light shining in my window and shining in our yard from one of those birds. That can be scary for a child.

We have some itty bitty frogs that live in the pool created by our air conditioner constantly dripping. They have a high pitched call that’s quite pleasant, a bit like a cricket, but much nicer.

Until about midnight, the woosh of a BART train across the valley. An occasional cricket. My neighbor’s snoring.

I just got used to it. When I live in quiet places I feel uneasy.

I can usually hear bats squabbling in the trees outside. And I often hear possums growling and carrying on. Frogs and toads croaking, and especially after rain. Cicadas are a common noise too. Plus owls hooting. An occasional car but not too often. In the middle of the night, sometimes I can hear a freight train on its way to Sydney. They are very long and the distant sound goes on for a long time. The tracks are not close to me but sometimes the sound carries this way. Dogs barking is a fairly common noise as well.

Vehicles passing. We live just off a major highway and the busiest passenger rail line in the US. We keep our windows open as much as possible. There’s also crickets and other critters about; lots of birds during the day. We hear neighbors walking by and the kids playing, but the sunset is definitely earlier now and school is back in session, so we don’t hear them very late. If the wind is blowing in the right direction, we can hear the High School Marching Band when they’re on the field. Sometimes the clubhouse gets rented out for parties, so we can hear music from that direction, too.

I do not have windows.

Cicadas, mostly, Some crickets, some tree frogs, and the occasional barred owl pair.

Crickets and frogs. Sometimes birds. Traffic from the main road about half a mile away. Sometimes the train. Sometimes some idiot’s car alarm. Sometimes some idiots driving way to fast down our street. Sometimes my neighbor working on his car in his garage with the door open (could be at any hour of the day or night).

City traffic. Late at night I can hear the noise from the freeway as well as the BART tracks, both about ¾ of a mile away. I often think of the scene from “Mdnight in the Garden of Good and Evil” when John Cusack, a writer on assignment for the New Yorker, prepares to turn in for the night in peaceful and lovely Savannah, Ga. Just before going to bed he pops a cassette into his little boom box, and out shrieks the sounds of squealing tires and brakes, blaring horns and cussing. There really is no place like home.

There is a bar right across the street, so until about midnight, I hear people talking. Then, the talking is replaced by the sounds of people going home…an occasional drunk singing, and the clinking of chains, as tables get secured against theft.

At two a.m., the casino closes. Its owners, a couple, lock up while gossiping loudly. Very entertaining.

At about three, the first birds start to sing.

Silence, the sound of a vehicle pulling up and then tipsy voices. The banging of a car door, the sound of high heels clattering and then silence again.

Arrrrrrrrgggggghhhhhhhh!!
One of the staff chose to wash the windows without prior notice, bloody idiot will spend the night in hospital.

Not much. Insects, frogs, the occasional barred owl or coyote. The freight train whistles when it goes through town, 7 miles away. I can hear the Doppler effect, which I love.

The sounds through the window…….
• Wind in the trees.
• Crickets.
• Raccoons fighting.
• Frogs. (sometimes)
• River seals (sometimes)
• Yapping dogs.
• Their arguing owners.
• The train when it passes.
• Occasional jet skis and powerboats.
• Sirens.
• Occasional M80 or some other large firework someone let off in the nearby field.
Order is not by frequency heard.

I’m hearing a bunch of crickets right now. We had a really warm end-of-September day here in NY.

^^^ 67˚ now. Lovely and mild on my deck.

The cicadas are out tonight. It sounds like summer.

Night is pretty quiet, day is donkeys braying, horses neighing, geese honking, ducks quacking, chickens cackling, neighbors goats maaaing. haha

I love this question and the answers You all are so descriptive.

I hear crickets, frog peepers, and a motorcycle or two zooming far in the distance.

I hear the sounds of feet trotting by as people go about their way. I hear the tingling sounds of wind chimes being bullied by the nights breeze, I occasionally hear the sounds of cats mating, the laughter of drunken couples rushing to find shelter to be alone. ...

“I love this question and the answers You all are so descriptive.”

I’m enjoying this, too. Good show, people!

I’m also enjoying the answers. Thanks everyone!

Tonight we sat outside and enjoyed a little camp fire. The temps were in the low 70s at twilight and there was a light wind. It was gorgeous.

We listened to cars traveling along the highway, a few freight trains, Amtrak as it made its nightly appearance, crickets, shotguns from a neighboring farm and the great horned owl that took up residence on our property this summer. My husband and daughter communicated with the owl while it flew back and forth between the soybean field and the barn. It was very entertaining.

Night birds, cicadas and crickets depending on the time of year, the odd catfight and occasionally possums.

You want to hear something mildly creepy? I saw this question while the window next to me was open last night. I thought “Crickets, freaking crickets! I hate crickets. Not the sound so much as the little bugs.” Wasn’t worth a post, so I let it go. About 5 minutes later I felt something on my foot and a freaking cricket had gotten into the house and jumped up on my foot. It was like the beginning of a horror movie or a Kafka story.

Lots of crickets tonight, and the hens clucking themselves to sleep with the occasional shriek because someone is trying to intrude on anothers favorite roosting spot in the barn. lol

As of tonight, I’m adding the sound of dried leaves shhusshing as people walk through them.

@ibstubro

What’s the matter with crickets? They don’t bite or sting nor do they transmit
diseases (like flies and mosquitoes do.)

All they do is make cute chirpy sounds. And are considered to be harbingers of good luck in Asian culture as well as most Native American tribes.

Did you know that one can estimate the temperature by timing the crickets chirp?

What harm did a cricket ever do to you ? (other than landing on your foot.)

How awful for you. My heart bleeds for you :)

Did you get up on the wrong side of the bed today?

:D

The last two nights there is a Great Horned Owl whoo, whoo, whooing in the trees behind my bedroom window.

Crickets are destructive, @Buttonstc, eating paper goods and cloth. They also make a gross sound when you step in them, and a mell of a hess to clean up.
:-P

Depends on the season. During the summer, I hear frogs and crickets. And also cars. During the winter, I hear coyotes.

@Buttonstc “Did you know that one can estimate the temperature by timing the crickets chirp?”

That’s amazing! How?

@longgone

By counting the number of chirps per (seconds or minutes). I don’t have the exact formula in my head, but people have been doing this for ages and ages.

It’s not like some new discovery or something and I’m betting there’s country folk somewhere who are more familiar with the specifics.

If you go to Snopes.com and put “cricket thermometer” into search it goes into a fair amount of specifics from various sources including Farmers Almanac as well as a scientific researcher.

^ Very cool. Thanks!