Before the Horns Wake Up: Lucknow’s 5 Green Spaces Still Sound Like This

World Listening Day, marked globally on 18 July, exists to draw attention to how sound shapes the way people experience the world around them. In Lucknow, that idea was put to the test with visits to five of the city’s green spaces before dawn traffic could drown anything out — and the results suggest the city’s natural soundscape is more intact than its congested streets might suggest.

Visitors and staff across the sites described the sounds in strikingly similar terms: calming, refreshing, a break from the everyday. At Lohia Park, gatekeeper Manish Tiwari said people specifically come for the fresh air and peace the morning offers, while walker Piyush Srivastava said the sounds leave him feeling refreshed and visitor Shubh Patel called it the ideal way to begin the day. Birds calling from the trees, leaves rustling in the breeze and insects humming through the grass made up the bulk of the morning’s audio.

At Janeshwar Mishra Park, the standout sound was the coppersmith barbet’s steady ‘tuk-tuk-tuk’, layered with whistling Oriental magpie robins, chattering bulbuls, overhead parakeets and a cicada-and-cricket hum underneath it all. Regular Ramesh Srivastava said it helps him relax, and yoga practitioner Sunita called the park a peaceful escape from city life.

The NBRI Botanical Garden offered what staff described as a full dawn chorus — a koel’s call first, then mynas, parrots, bulbuls, crows and peacocks joining in. Student Yashi Singh said the birdsong encourages visitors to put away their earphones and actually listen. At Kukrail Forest, crickets dominated alongside a distant peacock call, quacking ducks and rustling squirrels; a sound meter there measured roughly 59 decibels.

The quietest reading by far came from the 37-acre CG City wetland tucked behind Ekana Stadium, where noise levels sat between 30 and 40 decibels — openbill storks calling across the water, reeds swaying, and birdwatchers spotting Sarus cranes, Oriental darters and black-winged stilts.

Experts framed the findings as both rare and valuable. ‘Such natural soundscapes are now rare and can almost be counted on one’s fingertips,’ said Prof Venkatesh Dutta, while Prof Adarsh Tripathi noted the wellbeing angle: ‘Natural soundscapes help the brain slow down, reduce stress and anxiety, and improve attention. Even a few minutes spent listening to birdsong or rustling leaves can have a calming effect and support overall mental well-being.’

Image: Wikimedia Commons/by J.M.Garg (CC BY 3.0) — a coppersmith barbet, one of the birds heard across Lucknow’s parks at dawn.