The sounds on a beach are wonderful. Between the waves, the moving sand and the wind, there seems to be nothing much else, even if this is already a great soundscape. But sometimes, just sometimes, you hear something else.

In this case I was listening to a pair of Eastern Willets, yacking at each other.

The Thunder Cave at The Ovens Natural Park in Nova Scotia is not a real cave. Just a hollowed-out rock by the sea. Waves that come in there crash into the end of the cave, resulting in sometimes explosive roars. Hence the name.

The sound is really great in there.

A few years ago, when I still lived in Winnipeg, there were some unsettling sounds in town. At first I couldn’t believe what they were, I thought perhaps wild dogs or something, but they were coyotes.

When I grew up, coyotes had always been painted as fearsome beasts, a tad smaller than wolves, but just as blood thirsty.

A few weeks ago, the weather was kind of “off”. Temperatures of +30C in May are not exactly common. On top of that, wildfires popped up in way too many places. With no end in sight, the birds were somewhat “subdued”. Still singing, but not as happy as one would imagine.

For recording their sound, that was kind of a bummer.