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What animal makes this sound?


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At 4:30 am I was awakened from a dead sleep on the enclosed back porch to something making an awful noise. At first I thought it was a woman, but within a few minutes I realized that it was an animal. I couldn't get a recording of it (I was too sleep dazed to think about it), but it sounded like a person yelling "HEEEEEEEEE." All of my cats came running to the screen, but i don't think any of them could see it because they didn't growl. I live in new the Mid-Atlantic states in a suburban neighborhood if that helps.

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I used to volunteer at a zoo so I've heard bobcats, foxes, peacocks, and cougars. I had a fox hanging out in the backyard for awhile, too. This wasn't quite like any of those. It was kind of like a cross between a woman, and an owl yelling HEEEEE.

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A bunny can make that noise, but won't unless it is dying or in very deep distress. My cat has made a bunny make that sound. :( 

 

But if ALL your cats ran up to you, it probably wasn't that, since  a cat wouldn't leave prey in that situation.

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A bunny can make that noise, but won't unless it is dying or in very deep distress. My cat has made a bunny make that sound. :(

 

But if ALL your cats ran up to you, it probably wasn't that, since a cat wouldn't leave prey in that situation.

We were inside of a screened porch. They couldn't have gotten to whatever was out there even if they had wanted to. They came running from inside the house out to the porch where I was sleeping. I hadn't thought of a bunny though.

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Could it have been barred owls caterwauling? Here's a link.

 

http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/barred_owl/sounds

 

Listen to the second clip, pair caterwauling, and see if that sounds familiar.

 

My guess is that what you heard was some sort of owl, if not the barred owl, especially since your cats came running in. Barred owls, however, are common in the mi-Atlantic states.

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Nope.  Definitely not a bobcat, coyote, fox, or cougar.  We had those at the zoo and they all sound like variations of whining, yipping, screeching, screaming, crying, or barking.  It also didn't sound like any of the barred owl sounds.  I'm pretty sure it wasn't a house cat or dog of any kind.  I sleep outside all the time and have never heard this sound before.  This was just a single sustained note - HEEE.  It sounded like a person, not necessarily a woman, yelling but not screaming.  It never changed in pitch or direction and did not include any type of warble at all, but it did vary in length.  There were about 5 - 6 HEEE sounds over the course of an hour with a very distinctive H sound at the beginning, not just EEEE, but HEEE.

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A bunny can make that noise, but won't unless it is dying or in very deep distress. My cat has made a bunny make that sound. :(

 

But if ALL your cats ran up to you, it probably wasn't that, since a cat wouldn't leave prey in that situation.

I used to live on the edge of a golf course. You would have thought there was a murder out on the fairway every other night. It was owls picking off rabbits. The bunny death scream is quite alarming.

 

This web site might help you figure it out:

http://waterandwoods.net/2008/09/wild-animal-sound-bytes/

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I used to live on the edge of a golf course. You would have thought there was a murder out on the fairway every other night. It was owls picking off rabbits. The bunny death scream is quite alarming.

 

This web site might help you figure it out:

http://waterandwoods.net/2008/09/wild-animal-sound-bytes/

 

Oh wow.  That's a lot of sound bytes.  I'm going to go listen to all of them.  :)  This is driving me nuts.  I almost can't wait to go to sleep tonight to see if it happens again.

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  • 9 years later...

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