I don’t know why, but this summer I have been unusually aware of sound, especially the sounds of nature heard sitting on our West Tisbury deck in the pine, oak and beetlebung woods near Seth’s Pond.

Perhaps it’s because it was a dry August that the clicking of the cicadas and the raspy bark of the squirrels were louder and clearer than they’ve been most summers. The shrieks of hawks soaring above the trees have been knife-like in their clarity. Hummingbird wings whir like baby blenders. The grunts of the bullfrogs in our pond seem to come from an underground cave, not our 15-foot fish pond 20 yards away. Only the goldfish are silent.

Earlier this summer a bird alighted on the tip of a dead branch on a nearby oak. It let out a cry so clear, so piercing, so loud that I swore it was a Baltimore oriole, whose call I last heard some many years ago in front of the old Tisbury town annex Quonset hut. From where I stood this sunny noon, it looked like an oriole, its breast rosy red. I could not see the head at that angle, but the cry and the breast convinced me. I nailed two orange halves to the deck rail nearest the bird’s oak. Three days later the oranges were withered, untouched. The next day the bird came back – same branch, same piercing cry. This time I had a clear view of the whole creature. It was not an oriole but a male cardinal, whose cries I have known all my life. But this cardinal, this summer, sounded different: clearer, more piercing, and far louder than any cardinal ever before.

I love the sounds of summer, most of them. One reason we abandon our suburban Vineyard Haven house for this cottage in the woods every July is because of the power mowers, huge growling machines more suitable for golf courses than our neighbors’ tiny green patches. Here no one has a lawn, or cares not a whit if it grows raggedy. But I love, and am soothed by, the sound of propeller planes purring above the trees. Even the jets sound friendlier, less whiny, than they do elsewhere. Large delivery trucks bump softly along on their way to the nearby inn. Emergency vehicles wail in the distance, making tragedy seem very far away. And sometimes, like right now, there is not a sound to be heard, the sweetest sound of all.

It has been a beautiful summer. The Sound has seemed bluer, the shores of Lake Tashmoo busier with the activities of teenagers swatting shuttlecocks, fishermen scraping glistening bluefish, children catching crabs with their bare hands. And again, the sounds. Oars rattling in oarlocks, oar blades splashing as they dip and rise, untied halyards clanking gently, outboard motors putt-putting their dinghies to and fro, sail slides rattling in their tracks, winches grinding jib sheets tight.

I cannot imagine remarking on the sounds of winter, with our windows firmly shut and the furnace grousing. But the sounds of summer, this summer, have been sweeter than any concerto, aria or etude.

Listen: which do you hear?