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Strange Nocturnal Noises (General Compendium) - Animals(?)

A

Anonymous

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No, not the surreptitious guff under the duvet, I'm talking about creatures outside. I'm currently staying for a while somewhere which backs onto some park land, and at night it gets pretty damn noisy because of things. The noises are firstly a kind of shrieking barking noise, and secondly a shrieking noise that could almost be mistaken for a human female in hysterics (is the best way I can describe it, a kind of wail) which has a couple of times sent me to the window wondering if someone was in trouble. But in listening carefully it's not quite human enough to warrant further investigation.
Any ideas what these things could be? Foxes? Squirrels?
 
Sounds like the noises foxes make in breeding season (oct to feb normally) but as they're urban foxes the season it extended. Usuall at this time of year cubs are about, so I'd say it's a few cubs frolicking around :)
 
Hedgehogs make some pretty damn bloodcurdling noises too - and barn owls who screech like somethings being ripped to shreds in the dark.

I live on outskirts of a large woods on the edge of Torbay, Devon.
It's pretty rural and although a nature lover, I do get a bit fraught when in the garden at night.

I know 'things' are watching me.
And although most of those 'things' are cute and fluffy, the imagination does tend to go a bit bonkers.
 
Dark Detective said:
So it's not evil wolfmen or legions of undead then?
Click to expand...
No, they mate around June, so you're got plenty of time yet :p
 
Yeah, foxes - or possibly mad seagulls. Those noises used to make back-garden camping fun. (That and the ghosts!) :eek:
 
Foxes make loads of noise when it suits them and the scream of a vixen can be most trouser-distressing to those unfamiliar with the sound.

However, if you want downright, toe-curling, hair-stood-on-end eerieness then the call of the Red-throated Diver is the daddy. First time I heard it was across a Hebridean sea-loch at night and I was out of my bivvy-bag and halfway to Glasgow before you could say shit-your-pants.

Apparently the locals used to say that it was the sound of witches calling to each other over the moors - can't say I would argue with that conclusion if I didn't know otherwise.
 
last summer some american friends of mine invited me to their house in pennsylvania, on a little lake
the first night i went out for a couple of cigarettes and after ten minutes (trying not to rush or appear scared, which i was) i went back in asking <er... do you have big scary animals with a spooky voice here?>. i had to produce an imitation of the sound i had heard. turned out what had scared me were bull frogs.
damn it.
we don't have them down here. our frogs go ribbit ribbit (actually, they go cra cra in italian), not roar-growl.
 
One of the scariest sounds is a coughing sheep believe it or not, the number of times I've just been walking along and they let out an amazingly human like cough - very scary if they're hiding behind something :wince:
 
Emperor Zombie said:
Do you mean a loon? Here's a link...turn on your speakers....there's the sound of the red throated loon (aka diver) accompanied by guitar....but I think you get the picture.
Click to expand...

Loon is the N. American term for the Diver. I think there are three types that visit the UK - the Great Northern, the Red-Throated and the Black-Throated.

According to one reference book the Red Throated Diver breeds by "comparatively small but deep lochs and pools in desolate spots". Funny how the sound they make is so appropriate to their environment. No musician could sum up the atmosphere more effectively.

Incidentally on the same trip that I first heard the Diver I made the mistake of camping under a cliff that was home to a colony of Manx Shearwaters. Idiot. Not exactly spooky - but bloody noisy. It would be fair to say that you'd get more sleep bunking in an underpass on the M25.
 
Spooky :eek:

Listen to the fox sounds (greyfox fight.wav) from Emperor Zombie’s link . There’s a distinct human sound in there. Don’t believe it’s a fox. Could it be Electronic Voice Phenomena (EVP)? Is it a voice from the "other side”? Sounds pretty scary to me!!!

:eek!!!!:
 
Nothing to do with foxes - I know what they sound like and had some chasing each other up and down the road at 3am a while ago.

I've not been asleep but while reading in bed tonight I've now twice been disturbed by the sound of someone crying outside my window, but when I've got up to look (I'm goodnatured - I don't like to think of anyone in distress) there's been noone visible in the road. First time I think they must have gone into a house or out of sight or something, but then again 10 minutes later...

More of a quiet sobbing than a loud cry that could have carried from someone's house.

Odd. Must have just been strange acoustics or wind carrying sound from further along the road or something.

Steve.
 
Rabbits scream when a cat, owl fox etc. gets them.
 
Waders and seabirds call at night,I used to live on Walney Island on the Furness peninsula and remember being woken up by them at night,they can sound spooky,foxes are champions of scarey screaming though!
How about the strangeness of a whole load of migrating geese coming over at night? Phantom hunt sound effects!
 
SJWK,
apparently cats hunting for cat-totty sound like babies crying. Very weird and not a little concerning the first time you hear it.

Also heard a hedgehog in the garden hedge once. Scared the stuff out of me. Couldn't believe anything that small could make that much noise.
 
Emperor Zombie, thanks for the links, they've revived some semi-concious memories of 3am at my previous abode...
It seems it was indeed foxes - I defy anyone to listen to "faroffcry.wav" and not think the second cry sounds like a woman in considerable distress... :eek:

For info, I was staying pretty near Kew Gardens, not only on the Heathrow flightpath but seemingly also a flightpath for migrating geese (coincidence?). What on earth makes them need to keep honking all the bloody way from Africa to wherever they're going? Most annoying.
 
The banshee wail is the vixen - the dog fox makes a kind of coughing bark.
  • It's probably too early in the year for cubs to be out playing but they make kind of yipping noses mostly.
 
When the cubs call out it sounds like a baby crying.

My boyfriend woke up in a panic one night the first time he stayed over, after hearing one in the woods behind my flat and thought someone had dumped a child.

He thought I was really heartless because he said to me
"Listen, it sounds like a baby" and I replied "yeh it does doesn't it?" and went promptly back to sleep, unwittingly forgetting that he'd never heard it before. When we moved into our house he said that it's always freaked him out and he was glad we'd moved away.

Jessie! (Just a shame he never woke up in the same way when our son started mewling at 3am!!)
 
I used to live in the country- right out in the sticks- and my bedroom had a broken window. Across the road was a tall tree where an owl roosted. Every now & then it would hoot, sounding as if it was in the room with me- scared me half to death many a time!
 
Quicksilver said:
Hedgehogs make some pretty damn bloodcurdling noises too - and barn owls who screech like somethings being ripped to shreds in the dark.

I live on outskirts of a large woods on the edge of Torbay, Devon.
It's pretty rural and although a nature lover, I do get a bit fraught when in the garden at night.

I know 'things' are watching me.
And although most of those 'things' are cute and fluffy, the imagination does tend to go a bit bonkers.
Click to expand...

Yes I agree. Until I became a night security guard for a while, I would never have believed the ammount of noise a little hedgehog would make, and TWO hedgehogs will make enough row to scare a person witless unless they know what it is. Foxes too also have to be seen to be believed, with the noises they make.

ps Quicksilver. I used to live in torquay myself ( the "famous" Warren Rd):D and I was there several years back when there was a strange 'monkey' faced type thing seen in either chelston wood i think or possibly Yarner wood. (a really ancient woodland) It was mentioned in the Torbay Herald. Do you recall that? and was anything ever heard of again ?

I have looked for this on the net but cant find it anywhere, If anyone knows what im on about please put up a link or some more info here. thanks:)

ps; also when I livbed there a deer suddenly appeared in Teignmouth rd ( i think) with its head stuck in a fence. It was making a real row and was not seen by a single sould untill it turned up stuck in a fence. It was as if it was just teleported into the fence from another location. On that same road late at night, whilst walking home from a freinds one night, I sa a strangle small beast in the shadows. From what I could see it looked like a huge hare with massively oversized back legs and a tiny head with no ears. everytime i approached it backed off so I couldnt get a close view and in the end gave up.
Come to think of it i had several strange things happen to me when I lived there. i plan to move back when i've finished college. I hope to do much fortean investigating whilst down there.next month for a short holiday.
 
Hubby and I were in bed once trying to get sleep, when all of a sudden we heard this really loud heavy breathing. It was a raspy, rhythmic kind of noise and it sounded at first like it was coming from behind our wardrobe.

Scared the crap out of us!! We were sneaking around trying to figure out where it was coming from, and realised it was actually coming from the garden. We went downstairs, armed with a baseball bat, and hubby crept round the side of the house to set off the security light that would light up the back garden.

Turned out to be two hedgehogs, hhhhrrrm... "getting it on" with each other! We were helpless with laughter (or it could have been relief!) - who would have thought that two such tiny creatures could make such a scary bl**dy noise? :D
 
My wife often used to hear what she described as a 'robot voice' in the terrace that we live down. I was working nights at the Post Office whenever she heard it, so I never experienced it myself. She used to look outside but never saw anything.
 
A couple of days ago I was woken up in the morning (about half four, but it was quite light outside) by this horrible screeaching croak sound. I went to the window, half asleep, almost expecting there to be some kind of prehistoric pteradactal outside.
It was a crow sitting on a lamppost just outside my window.
And it didn't shut up for about an hour.
 
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