Listen

Do you want to know a secret?

This Saturday at 6 a.m. I will be leading one of my Listening Tours for New York City Wildflower Week. You may register here if you want to come along to this free event. Note the time: we meet at the Grand Army Plaza entrance to Prospect Park close to sunrise, when the park is at its non-human loudest. This is a silent walk on our part. Our phones are off, our thoughts are (hopefully) attuned to listening, our ears are awakening to the sounds of spring. We will walk at a leisurely pace to let the sounds of traffic and the city slip away from us, and pause at particular solo or choral hotspots, which might of course be anywhere along the route depending on the birds (and perhaps, mammals; small chipmunks can make big sounds). All told, this should take about an hour and a half and end back at Grand Army. We won’t be there to identify the sounds, just to listen to them, feel them, experience them as animals with acute senses ourselves.

This will be my third year of these walks. Here is my take from last year. And 2011’s.