Chig

So I'm slicing beans one after the other—chig, chig, chig, chig, chig—and everybody's giving me the beans, and I'm going like sixty when the boss comes by and says, "What are you doing?"

She dragged him along the wide bitumen path and past the slow chig-chig-chig of a lawn sprinkler. Deep inside the school the insect chorus buzzed and drilled: chairs scraping, kids yelling, a teacher's voice calling the roll.

No one had spoken in the taxi. The only sounds were those of the London rain pattering teasingly against the vehicle's rolled-up windows and the ever-present chig-chig-chig of the diesel engine as this silent threesome made their way north towards Mill Hill.

The old trading-boat's continuous chig-chig-chigging was a friendly sound, and, by daylight, Su-Li took turns to steer the boat; yet there was often sufficient time for the boy to watch the water-buffalo in the plantations of the Red Basin, the patient stooping of the peasants, and, elsewhere, the bustle of the towns, their fishermen and their overcrowded ferries.

Fun fact: The red-bellied woodpecker has a loud, harsh, rich "quirrr" call. It can also be heard calling a "chig-chig" series of notes in a descending chuckle.