Mrs BWW has one of those Ipod things, but she doesn't use it when walking. When my hearing was better, I told her what many of the sounds of the countryside are. Now she can pickup the slightest hint of a wood pecker and is first on the ball with the cuckoo. I am not very good a birdsongs, but there is a difference between the warning call a blackbird makes for a domestic cat or a stoat, sometimes wish I had paid more attention to my old countryside mentors in my youth.
Last week Mrs BWW picked up on a waterfall in Glen Strae, by the sound, I had seen it on the map but finding it might have passed us by, if the sound had not added to the intrigue to the location. It was hidden away in forestry and behind a deer fence, it was the highlight of our walk, as the River Strae fell into a a narrow gorge cut by a lesser burn cutting at right angles across it's course down the Glen.
I have been fortunate to locate many more sites of Peregrine Falcons, by catching the warning calls at a distance, than I expect many walkers are aware of. Since I made Mrs BWW aware of the smell of a fox, the number of times she picks it up, now my sense of smell is not so good, makes me feel that I have helped increase her awareness of wildlife. This may not be an audible clue but is among the many signs that can tell the visitor that the countryside is not an empty space.