Persimmon Glen

There are all kinds of odd noises out in the woods that you may never be aware of until you live there. I have been nature lover my entire life and I have spent a lot of time in the Smokies walking through the woods. I grew up on a farm, but we didn't have woods. We had pastures.

When you live with very tall trees, one thing that you become really aware of is the wind. In east Tennessee the wind doesn't blow all the time like it did where I grew up. When it does blow, it almost always signals some kind of change in the weather.
Trees creak and groan when they sway. In the summer when it's shady and a light breeze blows it's a welcome sound and a great time for a nap in the hammock.
When a storm is blowing in though, trees are not your friend. In the mountains there can be fierce wind gusts, especially in the fall and winter. You can hear the wind roar from a long way off and as it moves closer and closer it sounds like a freight train bearing down on you. I've seen a gust of 40 miles an hour suddenly go by and keep on trucking down the mountain, sometimes lifting trees up by their roots, other times snapping them in half. Large and small limbs fall from heights of 50 ft. Not a good time to be outside, yet you pray that one won't fall on the house, so what else can you do but try not to think about it. I think I'm becoming a fatalist.

Sitting in the early evenings around a campfire you become aware of other sounds. There's the knock-knock-knock and rat-a-tat-tat of small woodpeckers and the laughing sound of the giant pilated woodpecker, and a host of other birds singing high in the trees. Squirrels chatter at you insisting that you've invaded their territory, crows and jays fight high in the air. Insects buzz by your ear and there's an occasional bark from a neighbors dog. You hear the lonesome cry of hawk and sometimes the whinney of a horse.
There's the pop and crackle from the chunks of wood that are thrown on the fire along with the sighs of contentment.
The best sound as the day turns to twilight are the tree frogs. It always starts with one, then ten, then it turns into a chorus of hundreds. They sing to each other, and a lullaby to me, as I fall off to sleep for the night.
I have rudely been awakened more than once by a mystery creature. I'm almost positive it is a bird, and I think I may have it pinned down to an owl. Not the whoo-whoo-whoo kind. This one shrieks high and low very loudly as it whisks through the trees and close to the ground. Unlike anything I have ever heard before, and always at dawn. I never can get up fast enough to catch a glimpse, but someday I will.
I'll be waiting in the pre-dawn hours with a camera and a recorder. Then perhaps I'll be able to find out exactly what it is.
Or maybe, I really don't want to know. Anybody know what Bigfoot sounds like?