![]() Late November and early December is when you’re most likely to hear foxes sing. Winter is their mating season and, like birds in the spring, foxes communicate by vocalizing. I’ve come to recognize some cries foxes make as their love songs. Over the past fifteen years, as foxes have moved into more suburban and urban habitats, their sounds are becoming increasingly more familiar. Humans accustomed to being indoors after dark might find such vocal exchanges a bit scary. Adult foxes are establishing and defending their territories against these young newcomers. Young foxes, newly on their own, are now exploring and traveling. As I step outside on any given evening, I hear their harsh cries pierce the night. This time of year, as the nights begin to turn cold, red foxes become more vocal. I’m often surprised that so few people recognize or even notice them. Having lived in the country most of my seventy-odd years, I enjoy the night sounds made by various wild animals. Pifer artwork courtesy the PA Game Commission. In his book The Quest for the Eastern Cougar: Extinction or Survival?, Robert Tougias writes: “The most common analogy of the puma’s vocalization is that of an adult woman screaming in terror for her life.” ( Learn how a Los Angeles cougar known for crossing freeways died.(above) A red fox playing with its meal. “No man,” he stated, “could well listen to a stranger and wilder sound.” President Theodore Roosevelt, who hunted cougar, described “a loud, wailing scream through the impenetrable gloom.” While cougars (also called pumas or mountain lions) are unlikely to be heard caterwauling in people’s backyards, it’s a sound that makes a deep impression. Elusive and naturally cautious, particularly around humans, the felines are almost wholly nocturnal in urban areas, so few are ever seen. ![]() ( See pictures of cats you've never heard of.)Įven so, many people wouldn’t guess it was bobcats that woke them up. Typically a sound made by competing males in winter during the mating season, it can be heard in many regions of North America. The noise of screeching bobcats has been likened to a child wailing in distress. Like barn owls, bobcats (Lynx rufus) and cougars ( Puma concolor) rarely vocalize, but when they do, anyone listening could be forgiven for calling 911. ( Watch a mother barn owl protect her babies from a snake.) Creepy Cats And if the nest or chicks are threatened by humans or predators, barn owls emit a loud, scary hiss. ![]() Males also scream when guarding females during the spring. While barn owls, which have a worldwide distribution, often mate for life, singletons can be pretty noisy, she adds. You’ll start hearing the screams around now, Plant says, because at this time of year juvenile barn owls start seeking a mate for the first time. A species that hardly utters a sound for most of the year, its screams are also perfectly timed for Halloween. ![]() The ghostly bird’s sudden, chilling presence helps explain why the barn owl was believed to be an animal of bad omen in the past. “I have had people say to me they thought it was a woman screaming,” she adds. conservation non-profit based in Ashburton, England. “The thing with barn owls is that they fly silently so you have no idea when they’re flying towards you,” says Jo Plant of The Barn Owl Trust, a U.K. English naturalist Gilbert White, writing in the 1780s, said the owl’s cries had whole villages “imagining the church-yard to be full of goblins and spectres.” The same spooky setting is associated with the night screams of the barn owl ( Tyto alba). To have that noise so close to you on a pitch black night in a graveyard was, briefly, terrifying.” “She crept behind me, sat down about six feet away and let out an almighty scream,” Harris recalls.
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