Wildlife

What's That Weird Noise in the Nighttime?

What made that sound in the night? © mountainamoeba / Flickr

You're laying in bed, audio asleep, or counting leaping sheep equally you drift off into dreams. And then, a scream. Or perhaps a screech. Or a guttural moan. Or a wail from beyond the window.

Was information technology an owl? Or a raccoon? Or possibly another unknown fauna?

Many creatures brand mysterious noises in the night, but in darkness information technology can be difficult to tell simply which species made that strange sound that you hear.

Hither are seven potential suspects to narrow your search; critters that are could be in your backyard, or your favorite military camp, calculation their sounds to the night'south chorus.Meet if y'all recognize their calls, and write in to tell us what other weird noises yous've heard in nature.

  • Crimson Play tricks

    Every bit I call up, the belatedly-nighttime call with my new-to-Maryland neighbour went something similar this: "Do you hear a woman screaming?" she sounded breathless and a footling frantic. "A woman'south beingness stabbed in our woods! I'm calling the police force!"

    "No," I said. "That'south a red play a trick on. Y'all're hearing the vixen's scream."

    Silence. The aching scream came again. Clearly audible through the telephone and from the forest between our yards. "That's a pull a fast one on? That's not a play a joke on! Are you sure that'south a fox?"

    I was sure. I concluded up sending her a link to a YouTube video of the scream to convince her to come up out of the room where she'd locked herself in with her kindergartner. Which, I bodacious her, locking herself in a room, and calling the constabulary was a completely understandable and sensible reaction to one'due south first meet with red fox screams shattering the nighttime.

    In fact, it's and so sensible that the Maryland Department of Natural Resources regularly posts stories on Facebook assuring people that the screams, cries and shrieks they hear are reddish foxes, non people being assaulted in their backyards.

    Read more than about red foxes and their wily ways. They're at present 1 of the most wildly distributed carnivores on Earth. (CCB)

  • Barn Owl

    Many owls hoot in the night, but not the barn owl. Oh no.

    Barn owls utter a rasping, harsh scream that sounds similar it's straight out of a low-upkeep horror movie. The sound is typically fabricated past the male, calling while in flight. Birds of both sexes utter a multifariousness of other creepy hissing sounds when disturbed on their nests, or when young are begging for food from their parents.

    Barn owls are found across nearly all of the lower-48 states. They prefer open, grassy country, where they chase for rodents at night and roost in copse or old buildings, like barns, during the day. They're unremarkably sighted flying low across roads at night.

    Many other owls in the Tyto genus make similarly unsettling noises. Australia's greater and bottom sooty owls brand a noise called the "bomb whistle," because it sounds like the bomb-dropping sound from your child's morning cartoons. (JEH)

  • Raccoon

    Nearly people don't recollect of raccoons every bit particularly song animals. They don't call out beyond the night like many animals on this list. But they actually make an array of sounds, particularly when agitated or alarmed. Sometimes, you're the ane who inadvertently alarms them, resulting in a shriek that has been likened to a high-pitched hog squeal.

    This is not a pleasant sound, and more than once I've been scared out of my skin when I've surprised a raccoon during an evening walk or line-fishing trip.

    But that twittering shriek is zero compared to the sound of a full-on raccoon fight. Territorial males occasionally appoint in battles that include heavy breathing, grunting and the kinds of screams y'all hear in horror-picture torture scenes.

    I recall one summer evening when sounds of a low, rolling growl sounded outside my bedchamber window. Shortly thereafter, the lights in every business firm in the neighborhood were turned on every bit a very large raccoon snarled, growled and screamed equally information technology savagely mauled a much smaller raccoon, leaving information technology lying paralyzed in a neighbour's yard.

    Some animal sounds give you the creeps. Fighting raccoons ruin your evening. (MM)

  • Limpkin

    If you hear a startling scream in the swamp at dark, chances are it's a limpkin. At to the lowest degree, nosotros promise it's a limpkin .

    These uncommon wetland birds are found in Florida and parts of Central and South America. They look like a cross betwixt a crane and an ibis, with white-speckled brown plumage and a long, curving xanthous bill which they utilise to prise apple tree snails from their shells.

    Male person limpkins are well known for producing a repetitive, high-pitched wail or scream that sounds remarkably human being-like when it wakes yous upwards in the dead of night. According to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, male limpkins have long, looping windpipes that allow them to produce these sounds, which are used to aid the bird marker their territory.

    The female person sometimes responds with a softer groaning call, so together they brand a rather disturbing duet. Individuals of both sex will as well make a staccato rattleing noise. (JEH)

  • Feral Pigs

    Or feral hogs, every bit nosotros call them in the parts of Florida and Georgia where I grew upward. Estimates from the U.Due south. Department of Agriculture put the number of wild hogs in the U.South. at around 6 one thousand thousand animals across 35 states. And growing. Just Texas has more feral hogs than Florida, merely Florida'southward population is believed to be, well, the oldest. The commencement pigs known to arrive in America came with Hernando de Soto in the 16 th century. They've been hither ever since.

    They're a huge trouble and the U.s.D.A. calculates the damage they cause amounts to almost $2.5 billion every year. Fifty-fifty i or two pigs squealing in the dark is startling. Merely when they gather in groups, chosen sounders, the cacophony of squeals, grunts and growls can sound like a banshee apocalypse. If you don't know what yous're hearing, it can be extremely unnerving.

    On his commencement camping trip to a land park in Florida, my then 3-year-sometime son was sleeping peacefully until the feral hogs started to gather. This is the kid who was famous for sleeping through annihilation. But it didn't accept long before he saturday bolt upright in his sleeping bag, clutched his stuffed bear, and whispered, "What's out in that location?

    Pigs, I told him. Really noisy pigs. He nodded and spent the residue of the night in my sleeping bag. The next day I took him to find the wallows where the pigs had been, and the ground was torn and churned like there had been some kind of battle.

    As the wild hog population has exploded globally, non just in the U.S., they're wrecking a lot more than than a pre-schooler's first camping trip. And are even contributing to climatic change. (CCB)

  • Indian Peafowl (aka Peacock)

    I never expected to add a peacock to my birding Yard List. Merely that's exactly what happened three years ago, when I moved into a semi-rural neighborhood a few hours north of Brisbane. Unpacking box after box, I looked out the window to run across a resplendent male person peacock strutting down the road, its tail flouncing along the pavement. Every few steps, he'd allow out an unmistakable honk.

    Only that wasn't the simply dissonance that our Honkeytonk (as nosotros nicknamed him) made. Months later on, when the breeding flavor rolled effectually, we awoke in the night to a high-pitched, repeating scream. Honkeytonk, it seemed, was in search of a mate. And he kept up his screaming for several months until our neighbors had him relocated to a farm, where he could alive with the company several peacock friends.

    Feral peacocks are more than common than you might think. In addition to their native range in Bharat, feral populations occur throughout N America, South Africa, Europe, Southeast Asia, Australia, and New Zealand. Despite their lovely appearance, feral peacocks are often quite a nuisance to people, who often object to both their noise and their very big droppings.

    The city of Los Angeles made headlines final year for their attempts to curb the local peacock population, with one resident notably describing the birds' call as " sound[ing] like babies existence tortured through a microphone, a very big microphone." (JEH)

  • Coyotes

    I love to step exterior on a spring evening and the howl of coyotes. Judging from the posts I see on neighborhood apps, many are much less enamored. They get freaked out by what they consider hordes of coyotes descending upon their backyards.

    Coyotes are now widespread in N America and have fabricated themselves at home in the suburbs. That means a lot of people hear the howls, yips and barks, particularly during the mating season between January and March. At this fourth dimension of year, pairs institute territories, and they howl to denote that. other nearby pairs may then respond, announcing their own territories. At such times, it can sound like a cascade of howls across the landscape.

    It sounds, to human ears, like there are many more coyotes than at that place actually are, leading distressed social media users to proclaim neighborhoods are "overrun" with coyotes. Read more about coyote howling .  (MM)