By Nick Simonson

Like many Gen Xers, I grew up with a second set of babysitters in Luis, Maria, Oscar the Grouch, Big Bird, and of course, Kermit the Frog, along with the rest of the cast of people and puppets in the happy little borough along Sesame Street.  Besides assisting in my instruction on how to read, write and be a decent human being, the show was famous for its musical interludes.  While some, like the animated super-trippy pinball machine counting to twelve (you’re likely singing it now) were fast and catchy, others like the ballads Kermit sang such as Its Not Easy Being Green were memorable for other reasons.

One of the lead frog’s less appreciated hits was a slow but hilarious tribute to the enjoyment of a quiet evening, something every suburban hunter like me relishes when taking the stand, away from the hustle of town and all of its auditory overload. However, Kermit’s quiet evening is quickly derailed, as he incorporates all the noises – dogs barking, cars driving, people shouting – that he hears into the tune and suddenly, the listener comes to the realization that the sound of silence is truly a precious commodity.

With the roar of the weekend’s winds subsiding yesterday, I took to the stand as the breezes shifted and calmed in the late afternoon.  Each step up the ladder was a clank and a clink as the various clips and buckles of my field suit and hunting pack dinged their way into the seat with me and I winced with each ping of the metal structure.  Letting the world around me calm to my obvious presence and slowly forget my ascent, I listened for the cracking of branches or the rustling of leaves signaling a deer fleeing at a distance, but there was nothing but silence.  And then my own quiet evening began.

Below me, in the grass, a soft rustling caught my attention, and I stared down the side of the ladder.  In the leaves and fallen wood, a small mouse travelled about the bases of the brome piled up against the timber, foraging and moving to and fro, making as big a noise as it could muster.  Then, behind me, the single-note whistle of a wood duck started, and it didn’t stop for an hour.  Every ten seconds or so, the high pitched wheeeeet would sound, like the alarm on the door of my refrigerator at home when left ajar after a bout of boredom snacking.  Occasionally, more wood ducks would fly in from adjacent oxbows on the small waterway, and the main whistle would be answered by a couple more, along with other chatter the bottomland waterfowl are famous for.

As the sun began its trek down the side of the high hill that borders the western edge of my hunting area, a flock of turkeys wandered out into the open, cooing, clucking and calling to one another as the group materialized in the low grass of the farm trail leading to the field where I sat.  Their chatter continued along with the woody’s whistle until the sun disappeared behind the trees on the rise and the ducks behind me took to the wing, flying up and over my stand, startling the first spurt of adrenaline in my system for the evening.  Every five minutes or so, another group of three or five or seven would take off until I had counted 21, explaining the chatter that had gone on all evening.  Suddenly, the thunder of rattling branches caught my attention, and I lifted and readied my bow. Instead of a buck bounding into view, I placed the cacophony as the turkeys trying to get out of sight for the night, as their rumbling wings slapped the branches of the boxelders fifty yards from me while the large upland birds – all 20 or so of them – found their safe spaces.

Following the big  birds of a different sort finding their roost, a train rumbled through on the tracks about a mile to my north as the sun set and the last minutes of legal light began.  As the rumbling faded, I caught another noise but couldn’t identify it at first.  There was a rustling in the nearby grass, but along with the steps of the animal along the edge of the wooded creek came the sound of…a bell?  Indeed, it was two of them as a white dog then a golden retriever mix appeared, followed by a lady in a pink vest talking to them both and snapping pictures with her iPhone.
It was then I recalled Kermit’s ballad, announced my presence to the woman with a laugh, surprising her and her dogs.  After they passed, I sighed presuming my evening was over, unnocked my arrow and began my descent from the stand a bit earlier than planned, knowing that sometimes like in the song from my youth, the quiet of the evening can be anything but…in our outdoors.