9520 A simple but aggravating question

The answer is crickets if the noise is not too dissimilar to the cicadas. Cicadas sing only during the day and if you are stood under an umbrella pine the racket can be deafening but in the evenings the crickets take over. Frogs can be a possibility but I reckon you would need swampy ground nearby. As for the soft whistling type noise I'm not too sure.

How about owls? There is one particular owl variety, which I have never heard in Britain - it sounds as if it was invented by Intel as a low battery warning! I'm afraid I don't know what it is called, but it seems to favour urban areas.

[quote=Charles Phillips;89182]How about owls? There is one particular owl variety, which I have never heard in Britain - it sounds as if it was invented by Intel as a low battery warning! I'm afraid I don't know what it is called, but it seems to favour urban areas.[/quote]
During one of last summer's heatwaves, we were sleeping with the windows open. I'd [I]finally[/I] managed to drift off to sleep when my partner nudged me and asked what bit of electronic equipment was making the very annoying and persistent alarm sound.

Since it sounds like the noise my mobile phone makes when there's an unread SMS, we christened it the Nokia Owl. :bigergrin:

Al

(Edit: Actually, I'm pretty sure that what we're hearing in our very definitely non-urban setting, is a Scops Owl some distance away. There are pictures and sound clips of calls [URL="http://www.owlpages.com/owls.php?genus=Otus&species=scops"]here[/URL]. For some reason, 'our' owl sounds more like the recording from Russia.)

I'm sure your Nokia owl is my Intel owl - (unfortunately I couldn't persuade your site to play me the sounds) - because it would have been interesting to hear the chick's call (which perhaps could be the sound which Derek M has heard). I had (many years ago) tentatively identified it as a Scops owl, but a recording of its eerie hoots would have been the clincher. (My suggestion that it was 'urban' is based solely on my encounters with its call, which I had only heard in towns.)

We moved into an abandoned house (this was in Lincolnshire many years ago) and barn owls had made their nests in the trees surrounding the house. When they had their chicks we heard them learning how to do the too-whit-too-whoo stuff, and it was about the funniest and most charming thing: a series of slightly high pitched too-whit, too-whit, too-whit ... followed by the first attempt at 'whoo'.

Moving into yet another abandoned house, this time in Italy, we had the nighttime noise of some frightening dervish (which at first we thought was an extremely speedy land based creature rushing around the house) - it turned out to be a screech owl, and unlike the English Barn owls it did not desert its territory when it had human activity as a distraction. Quite a frightening noise though, from the screech owl.

I think it's frogs.

[QUOTE=DerekMthe softly whistling sounds one hears all over the Mediterranean area at night. One of our friends is adamant it is made by cicadas, but most of us can't believe that they could make one sound during the day then another one at night, unless there are different species. Another is sure it is made by frogs.

Can anyone put us out of our misery?[/QUOTE]

We only here at night it almost sends you to sleep and then only during the spring and early summer.

[quote=DerekM;89180]Hi,

Having been to Italy a few times and off again this summer, we were debating the other evening [B]what makes the softly whistling sounds [/B]one hears all over the Mediterranean area at night. One of our friends is adamant it is made by cicadas, but most of us can't believe that they could make one sound during the day then another one at night, unless there are different species. Another is sure it is made by frogs.

Can anyone put us out of our misery?[/quote]

It's Bats. Don't laugh, I'm serious. Bats whistle.

[quote=Charles Phillips;89189]...it would have been interesting to hear the chick's call (which perhaps could be the sound which Derek M has heard)...[/quote]
The Scops chick call on that site is a brief, harsh grating sound repeated approximately once a second.

I guess young Barn Owls have to learn to 'whoo' and Scops Owls have to get in tune.

Al

I've heared this also and have wondered what it is.
A soft descening whistle repeated 2-3 seconds only at night.
It has to be a bird of some sort.

I had a similar experience when I arrived in Australia, when on a quiet night I could hear slow clicks 3 per second accellerating to a almost a creaking sound which would abruptly stop.
Usually I would hear this close to street lighting, and I assumed it was something electrical, and I got used to it and never bothered to ask anyone what it was.

To my great surprise I found out that it was the noise made by bats using their sonar to hunt for moths attracted by the lights.

Phil.

If the sound is similar to the one I used to hear in my garden in Australia, then it is definitely bats, fruit bats to be precise.

[quote=Gala Placidia;89205]If the sound is similar to the one I used to hear in my garden in Australia, then it is definitely bats, fruit bats to be precise.[/quote]
There is a small difficulty with this explanation in that fuit bats only live in tropical and subtropical regions of Africa, Asia, Australasia and Oceania. :bigergrin:

I suppose it could be yet another effect of climate change, but I think a few people would have commented if they'd seen things the size of small dogs flapping around in the olive trees of an evening. :laughs:

Al

No Gala, they are not fruit bats.. they are just the ordinary little pipistrello that are everywhere.

Still scares the crap outta you if one gets tangled in your hair because his sonar is messed up though. Maybe it mistook me for a mate and was trying to whisper sweet nothings in my ear! :bigergrin:

There are "pipistrelli" at home in Bagni, I think they hide in the lower level of the mill, the one which is directly over the river and makes a sort of cave, which I think they would like, but I have never heard them... perhaps it was winter and they were not very active... I am sure that they are there as I queried the pest control man about some marks near a section of the roof which had been repaired and he said "pipistrelli"...I thought that fruit bats were almost everywhere, at least in mild climates, thanks for the information.

If you think its an Owl, then there has to be two of them,,,,,,,,,,one that 'twits" and one that "twews"..........

we have one near us, that makes a 'beeping' noise, almost sounds electronic, almost like an alarm of some kind and can be heard in the early evening too.