On sunny summer mornings I take breakfast into the garden and enjoy listening to the soft cooing warble of a woodpigeon just above.

This is just one of a myriad of evocative and sometimes soporific summer sounds to be heard around us.

The gentle buzzing of bees; the joyful 'sweee-sweee' of swifts; the melodies of blackbird and thrush are all welcome in the garden.

The beauty is that we don't need to travel far to listen to natural sounds. A visit to a local Royal Park will offer the song of skylarks where to, jackdaws 'chak-chak' in vast flocks while the cheery 'wit-wit' calls of swallows delight us as they speed along the Thames at Kingston feeding fledglings.

From mid-summer a walk through long grass will be enhanced by the 'zizz-zizz-zizz' and high-pitched rattling hiss of grasshoppers and bush-crickets stridulating in chorus.

Yet in this modern age with busy lives being led, the roar of traffic and daily hectic commuting, we have largely lost not only our powers of observation but our ability to filter out natural sounds from all round pervading noise pollution. So, we often miss the delightful sounds and sights that  surround us.

For many years I have led wildlife walks on local commons and parks and invariably, at the conclusion, people declare that they never realized just what is out there and how much they have missed or taken for granted. So, taking a few moments to look and listen enriches our lives so much.