I'm sure you've heard the stories of city folk who go to live in the country, seeking peace and quiet, then discover that rural life can be pretty noisy too. We tend to think of our valley being a tranquil sort of place, but that's because we're now used to the various noises of the Mallorcan countryside. They're definitely out there, but it's our visitors who tend to notice them.
Something we both enjoy is the seemingly continuous birdsong: whatever the weather, they're singing their little hearts out. Perhaps it's because the thrush-hunting season is now over?
Which brings me to shooting. It was like the Wild West when we moved here. At first light (by which I mean still pretty dark), gunfire used to go off all around us, reverberating around the valley. How could these hunters see their targets? Actually, I hope they couldn't.
Occasionally, the sound of lead shot bouncing on the roof tiles, like superannuated hail, would wake us up. These were the gun-toting men - not proper country folk - who weren't following the rules about not shooting within a certain distance of houses. These groups of hunters would arrive on Saturday and Sunday mornings in Palma taxis and spend a trigger-happy few hours stomping over the countryside in search of anything that moved. Unfortunately, one of those things was an unsuspecting German cyclist (luckily he was more shaken than shot). SEPRONA - the division of the Guardia Civil responsible for this kind of thing - sent their team to Sort The Problem. These days, the only shooters are local farmers looking for ingedients for the cooking pot.
On the far side of the valley, up on the ridge, is a quarry. When we first moved here, we were a bit shocked at the level of noise that came from the place; sometimes sounding like a gigantic lion roaring. (The day we came to see the place and decided immediately to buy it, we came during the quiet long lunch break, when the quarry workers were in town tucking into a menu del día).
It's surprising, though, how quickly a regular sound like quarrying becomes mere background noise. It's only been this morning, as I did battle with a pile of wet washing and the rotary clothes dryer (twice my height and determined to strangle me), that I noticed that nothing's happening up there on the scarred ridge of the valley. La crisis obviously means less stone is needed for construction projects.
Did I mention José Luis's cockerel? The peacocks from the redundant pig farm?
The quad bikes, and the generators? Country noises-off continue next time . . .
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4 comments:
We only get the local hunters around here and no weekend is as bad as the first of the season! In general Sundays are the noisiest days, with quads and motorbikes adding to the usual sounds of tractors, birds, the dogs across the valley and the sound of stone crashing into lorries as they create the reservoir for the soon to come agri-water. But mainly it is fairly peaceful.
Last night it was owl central. Lovely but wow were they noisy. I guess they must be pairing up because they were all twitting and twooing all over the valley!
What about the daily pre-dawn bin-wagon?
Lead shot bouncing off the roof sounds a bit scarey! Here we only have the local hunters, mainly at weekends. I wouldn't like to be hit by the sort of shot they use for wild boar, but the hunters do keep away from houses and gardens, only very occasionally hitting another hunter. We're lucky that we don't have quad bikes or quarries, just a lot of birds!
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