By MARTA HEPLER DRAHOS
mdrahos@record-eagle.com
---- — If a ringtone is an expression of one's personality, I'm a loon. No, not that kind, though my husband might beg to differ.
No, I'm simply a nature lover who answers her phone to the haunting call of the aquatic bird, a symbol of the northern wilderness that originally brought me here.
It all began when I read a wire story about "Rare Earthtones" offered by The Center for Biological Diversity. The Arizona-based environmental group fights to protect endangered species and provides the free ringtones as a "starting point for talking about the plight of threatened species worldwide."
Education aside, the natural sounds of frogs and toads, mammals, owls and other rare and endangered birds seemed like a refreshing alternative to the jarring jangle of most cell phones. The only problem: they weren't compatible with my carrier.
A few years went by and I forgot all about the ringtones. That is, until recently, when frustration over my long-missing pound key finally drove me to buy a new phone from a different company. While running through the setup program, I came across ringtone options. And suddenly remembered the endangered species sounds I could finally download.
I sampled the nearly 100 ringtones, from the cry of the Mexican gray wolf to the underwater song of the humpback whale. And rejected them, one by one, as either too eerie, too startling or too annoying to hear on a regular basis.
Then there was the problem of whether to go native or exotic.
Should I choose the bobcat, like the one our neighbor saw on our property; a coyote, like those we can sometimes hear from our deck at night; or a bald eagle, like the occasional immature visitor that perches in our trees? Stray farther afield with the American crocodile or the Florida panther? Or make a statement with a little-known species like the Puerto Rican crested toad or the Okinawa dugong?
Finally I settled on the loon, whose familiar and soothing call I often hear from our windows.
Now I like my phone to ring so much that I often delay answering it. Sometimes I pick up only to discover that it's my husband's loon calling instead of mine.
Once or twice, I've even mistaken the ringtone for the sound of the real thing: a loon yodeling from the lake outside.
Lately I've been grappling with a new problem: a co-worker who likes to dial my number just to hear the loon go off in the quiet of the newsroom. A prank? Perhaps.
Then again, maybe it's just an educational reminder about the extinction crisis.
Reach staff writer Marta Hepler Drahos at mdrahos@record-eagle.com.
