I hear sounds at night. Man, do I hear them, and half the time I don't even know what they are. The first time I heard barred owls out in the back yard, it sounded like a jungle. Coyotes howling in the distance was bloodcurdling, a series of eerie, shrieking trills and snarling barks. Skunks? I heard a skunk. I saw "something" running back and forth on the street outside, obviously pissed off, and it was emitting a sharp, piercing squeak. I try to identify these weird woods sounds, which kind of explain to me why some idiots are convinced they hear Bigfoot in the forest. But this cougar is NOT something I would ever want to encounter. These sounds made my hair stand on end.
But the real story is way more weird. This morning, just sitting at my desk, the window partially open to a view of cedar boughs sifting the light and swaying gently in the breeze, I heard. . . something. Or someone? It was loud and primal enough to be an animal, yet it had a strange sort of human sound to it. Let's see if I can describe it: it was like an adolescent boy barking very loudly, repeatedly, and I could also hear an adult male voice yelling and shouting, as if there was a fight going on. After a while it subsided. But it wasn't the sound of our new neighbors over the back fence, who have two little kids and keep to themselves (plus they're away for Labour Day weekend anyway). How could a PERSON be barking? An autistic person, a stoned person, a brain-injured person? Or was it an animal? The whole thing was highly disturbing, and I spent the morning trying to track down different animal sounds on YouTube, bears, coyotes, even raccoons, to try to get a match. I didn't, though red foxes came close (and we have no red foxes around here).
We are right on the edge of the woods here, and urban wildlife is commonplace, easily finding a niche among accommodating humans who leave just enough garbage out for them to thrive. But I do not know WHAT this was, or WHO this was, and part of me doesn't even want to know. Even rabbits scream in the most bloodcurdling way, and I hear endless squirrel-swearing in the trees which luckily can't be translated. Unless this someone or something returns, I likely won't know, but I will keep my old camcorder handy just in case.
