The sounds of Ecuador

In this neighborhood, Ecuador gets up early.  It seems like half the houses around here have chickens, and therefore roosters.  The cartoon image of a rooster crowing for the first time at dawn is a myth.  Around here, they get started as early as 3:00.

 The dogs, however, stay up late.  They seem to have choir practice half an hour after I go to bed, regardless of the time.  I can frequently hear five or six distinct voices at any one time.  There are at least four barking as I write this.  That might be their warmup.

If I want to get a good night’s sleep, I have to figure I will lose about  twenty percent of the time to the dogs and the roosters, so I have to head off to bed that much earlier than I would ordinarily  need to.

 We do enjoy the frogs.  There is one species that starts with a deep rumble, and follows up with a kind of a clicking noise.  We don’t hear as many birds as we expected, which continues to surprise me.

 We had a remarkable thunderstorm in the middle of the night last night. We also had one late this afternoon.  I’m hearing the sound of a gentler rain, now, and the dogs have been silenced.