Anyone know what's making this noise?

[Bodshi]

It's a video because I didn't know how else to record it, but it was dark so there's really not much of a picture, and you need the sound turned up full to hear it because whatever it was was some distance off. I've just got back from walking the dog and recorded this on the last leg. The 'beasts' were way across the fields, possibly in some trees. There sounded to be two, but the deeper sounding one doesn't come out as clearly as the screamy one, which sounded very human when I first heard it. There is also a dog barking somewhere.

I can only think foxes but I've really only ever heard foxes in our garden when they've woken us up in the night and they were more yippy yappy and didn't go on for as long - I must have been there listening nearly 10 minutes and they were still carrying on when I left. Please don't tell me it's an animal caught in a trap, which is what really worries me.

 

[MrA]

Seagulls?

 

[CharliesAngel]

odd!! my first thought was foxes too.... we are coming into mating season so it could be that

or crows/rooks about to roost? what time was it at?

 

[chunky monkey]

Sounds like fox but could also be a rabbit. Sometimes it's when the fox catches a rabbit and doesn't kill it out right the rabbit squeals with the pain.

 

[Trewsers]

Hmm. Difficult. Did sound a bit seagull like.

 

[Trewsers]

I let Mr T listen, he reckoned it was something getting eaten.

 

[Cortrasna]

'tis the banshee innit? Seriously though...not sure that is foxes - when we here them here it sounds like a baby being slowly killed, very disturbing and far worse than that. the higher pitched sound does sound like some of the larger birds of prey we get here but never heard them at night?

 

[Bodshi]

It was at 18:23 (just checked the time on the video). The sun set at 5.30. I don't think it was seagulls or crows/rooks because I'm familiar with their sounds. I did wonder about owls but it wasn't really an owl sound either, and also wondered about a rabbit being eaten but I think it went on too long. I presume a rabbit caught by a fox would be at least incapacitated, if not dead, in 10 minutes. You can't tell from the video sound because obviously it's not in stereo, but it did appear that there were two animals, one with a low pitched bleat/bark/moo sound noise (I wondered deer?) and the other screamed like a child but actually sometimes the scream became more guttural and less human sounding, but it did sound as though they were answering each other. I really hope that one wasn't caught in a trap and the other calling to it. I know we have poachers and lampers around and the place where the sound was coming from isn't near a footpath or road, the only way to get to it would be over the fields so no law abiding citizen would be wandering about there.

 

[newforest]

My unexperienced ear thinks it's deer calls.
Yes you have more than one animal, the high pitched and the low pitched.

 

[Em 1]

It sounds like a pair of barn owls performing their mating calls to me. We used to have them where I lived and it was like human children screaming at first. There's a video here that I think sounds similar

but it is very eerie!

 

[Prjsmk]

Monsters

 

[CharliesAngel]

Em has it!!!

 

[Bodshi]

It sounds like a pair of barn owls performing their mating calls to me. We used to have them where I lived and it was like human children screaming at first. There's a video here that I think sounds similar [

Thanks! I think that's it. I have heard owl sounds before in that locality, but the more traditional screeching that I'm used to. Funnily enough, the second to last time I took the dog out it was just a bit earlier at dusk, and I had a lovely sighting of a barn owl as we walked along the canal bank. It is quite a regular there, but I haven't seen it all winter. Obviously Spring is in the air for barn owls, freezing cold weather or not lol.

I'm glad I heard the noise now that you've put my mind at rest

 

[Jane&Ziggy]

Definitely wols!

 

[Trewsers]

You see I don't think it was an owl. Back in the Forest of Bowland we had a lot and I got used to their noise sometimes right outside the caravan window. My money is still on some kind of bird. I don't think it was a baby rabbit being eaten either because the rats used to eat them and although they do scream it isn't quite like that. hmm.

 

[horseandgoatmom]

It was very creepy sounding a bit like human children at first and a dog in the backround.

There was a hawk in a tree this winter and must have been screaming for a lost mate and
that sounded horrible and you could hear the sadness.

I only knew it for sure was a hawk when it flew out of the trees to another patch of woods.

Could it also possibly be baby foxes screaming for mom?

 

[newforest]

Foxes, deer and owls have a type of scream. The deeper sound is either another animal or replying to the first, where are you.
The duration makes me think it's two animals trying to locate each other. Have you had any hunting etc in that area that's disturbed them?
I want to say on the ground animal and not a high up birds. I can be wrong though.

 

[Kite_Rider]

Sounds like foxes to me too. But then like the rest of me my hearing isn't what it used to be.

 

[newforest]

Just to throw a spanner in, our crows/ rooks have been making a screaming sound today.
Alarm call maybe, probably a sound I hear and ignore but I am tuned in now as played the video to others.
They thought fox or rabbit.

 

[Bodshi]

Thanks everyone. I posted the vid on the Wild About Britain website too and they thought foxes. Guess I'll never know!

I saw a little fox today on the dog walk, running across a snowy field. There's no hiding in a snow covered field when you're a red fox!

 

[Frances144]

If it sounds like a baby being murdered, then its foxes.