Cougar noise?

K

kirby

New member
Around 10 days ago early am, about an hr before Sunrise. I heard, what sounded like a large cat "wail" with a cough at the end of the wail. Noise came from, two city blocks[est] East of my house. This noise came out from a standing cornfield on the edge of town.

This noise happened again 4 days later, around the same time & area. I told my wife about it today. Two days ago, she heard it herself, around the same time frame & area.

There is a cougar in my county. That was last seen 2 miles SouEast of where we live now. What do you experienced lion hunter's think?

Does a cougar make such a noise?
Thanks for any feedback.
 
Cougars can and do make a LOT of different sounds. Steve Craig would have heard a lot of them, as has Lion-Ho. I wouldn't doubt that a cougar could have made the sounds you describe, but so could several other critters. The sounds I've heard a cougar make, when I knew it was a cougar, include some soft little bird chirp sounds, a breathy sort of whistle that I thought was my hunting partner trying to get my attention, and a fairly brief wailing cry or sliding bird call sound. That one started on a higher note and fell in volume and pitch and was 2-3 seconds long. That was from one animal and was always a single cry, not repeated for at least 15 seconds.

I am more convinced all of the time that I have heard cougars and lynx make sounds when I have been hunting, that I never associated with either animal. I think that's true of many animals. I heard cow moose a number of times before I finally associated the high pitched soft groan with moose. I thought it was a tree rubbing on another as it moved in the breeze. Ditto for some bull moose sounds, elk, etc. Some kind of cat snarled at me when I went to retrieve my call and decoy in the dusk last winter, but the sound started as a hoot and morphed seamlessly into cat snarl. We have a vast amount to learn about animal vocalizations. The lynx I heard recently made sounds that I attributed to three different animals/birds before he showed up, widely different sounds, and none of them made me think cat.

I'm a poor example as I never carry recording equipment but it would be great if you could get even a poor recording of the sound. For ID purposes, high quality isn't needed as it would be for use as a call.
 
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I'm convinced a cougar is what I heard. #6 sound clip was so close it made the hair stand on my arms. #7 was not as close, but convincing enough for me. As I have some hearing loss in my R-ear. This cougar was around 250yrds away or so wailing in a standing cornfield from our house. The wailing sound was piercing & clear, regardless.

Needless, to say I'm a bit pumped to put the hammer on him after we get some snow cover. We'll see.
 


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