Things that Go Bump in the Night

We have found that there are a lot of things that go bump in the night around here or bang or boom or screech or squawk or scratch, scratch, scuttle, scuttle. We had expected a lot of city noise in such a large city, but these are natural noises of a usually undetermined nature.  Because the house we are living is in made of concrete and has a metal roof, anything that lands on it does so audibly. The primary source of noise is the falling fruit from a huge pear tree that overhangs the roof. You’d be surprised at how loud a ripe pear can sound. There are also many birds here with beautiful and sometimes annoying calls, and they don’t seem to prefer daytime for their conversations. One night, we thought we were being invaded by a large pelican or something, with all of the scuttling and scratching overhead. It is also the rainy season right now so we have had a lot of nights of rain on the roof and frequent thunder. I was told that the thunderstorms in Johannesburg are dramatic and indeed they are. One night it sounded like two medium sized bombs had detonated directly overhead. Usually it’s not quite that loud, but the thunder here gives meaning to “rolling thunder” since it goes on and on and on. I’m not sure the reason for that; as soon I’ll try to check out why that is.