The Wind in the Willows; The Breeze in the Trees (and on the Seas)

One of my favorite childhood books - a century later still one of the best - was "The Wind in the Willows", by A.A. Milne, with marvelous illustrations by the great Arthur Rackham. The above example shows Ratty and Mole "messing around in boats".
I think of this because sometimes at the Sanctuary, mostly midweek when the air traffic to the Hamptons diminishes, one can experience a generalization of this, the "Breeze in the Trees" - my term for that most precious and delicious of commodities, not just priceless but antithetical to cost: the absence of human-generated sound, when only the subtlest of natural sounds, such as the whisper of the breeze in the trees, or on the seas, or the faint buzz of a nearby browsing hummingbird, can be heard. Here are 5 videos I took of this wonderful phenomenon; to show that the camera's microphone was indeed functioning I usually utter the "Wind in the Trees" phrase.
For me life is most intense during these rare periods of silence, which can last here for minutes at a time. It's sad that the simplest and oldest of treasures is now the rarest.