bitstrange
New member
Hi all,
A week or so ago, at about 11:30pm and again at about 2:30am, there was some kind of animal in our neighbourhood making really loud, distincitve noises and I've never heard sounds like this before, so I'm wondering if there's any way I could identify what it was. Any ideas of what it might have been or pointers to where I could listen to some animal calls would be greatly appreciated.
This was in a typical suburban area on the outskirts of Bristol, with semi/detached houses and small gardens, with a small forest and a brook not too far away. We normally get small songbirds and doves in the gardens, there are owls in the forest, and we occasionally see foxes and hedgehogs on the streets.
I think the animal was probably a bird, because the sound seemed to come from different areas of the neighbourhood within a relatively short space of time, and I'm not sure how a land based animal would have been able to move quite so quickly through the gardens/fences, though I may be wrong. It didn't sound like there were two calling to each other, though I could be wrong here as well.
The animal made a call every minute or so, along the lines of "kah-kah", slightly reminiscent of a turkey! The most noticeable thing was that it was very loud, though that might have been just because of the silence of the night. It kind of sounded like it was coming from deep within the throat, ie, not a shrill squeak, but something that sounded more powerful. It wasn't particularly deep or high pitched. It also occasionally made a longer, single "syllable" call that I would describe as a cross between a child screaming and a yelp that a dog makes when you step on its tail.
Since last week, it's been back a few times, often waking us up at night. We managed to get a couple of recordings of the call - not the best quality, but hopefully enough for someone more knowledgeable to identify it:
http://www.worldwide.me.uk/unknownanimal.mp3
and
http://www.worldwide.me.uk/unknownanimal.2.mp3
I appreciate this is all a bit obscure, and any ideas would be much appreciated. I don't know a great deal about birds, and this is just such a creepy noise that I can't even begin to imagine what it is!
Thanks in advance!
A week or so ago, at about 11:30pm and again at about 2:30am, there was some kind of animal in our neighbourhood making really loud, distincitve noises and I've never heard sounds like this before, so I'm wondering if there's any way I could identify what it was. Any ideas of what it might have been or pointers to where I could listen to some animal calls would be greatly appreciated.
This was in a typical suburban area on the outskirts of Bristol, with semi/detached houses and small gardens, with a small forest and a brook not too far away. We normally get small songbirds and doves in the gardens, there are owls in the forest, and we occasionally see foxes and hedgehogs on the streets.
I think the animal was probably a bird, because the sound seemed to come from different areas of the neighbourhood within a relatively short space of time, and I'm not sure how a land based animal would have been able to move quite so quickly through the gardens/fences, though I may be wrong. It didn't sound like there were two calling to each other, though I could be wrong here as well.
The animal made a call every minute or so, along the lines of "kah-kah", slightly reminiscent of a turkey! The most noticeable thing was that it was very loud, though that might have been just because of the silence of the night. It kind of sounded like it was coming from deep within the throat, ie, not a shrill squeak, but something that sounded more powerful. It wasn't particularly deep or high pitched. It also occasionally made a longer, single "syllable" call that I would describe as a cross between a child screaming and a yelp that a dog makes when you step on its tail.
Since last week, it's been back a few times, often waking us up at night. We managed to get a couple of recordings of the call - not the best quality, but hopefully enough for someone more knowledgeable to identify it:
http://www.worldwide.me.uk/unknownanimal.mp3
and
http://www.worldwide.me.uk/unknownanimal.2.mp3
I appreciate this is all a bit obscure, and any ideas would be much appreciated. I don't know a great deal about birds, and this is just such a creepy noise that I can't even begin to imagine what it is!
Thanks in advance!
