Have you ever heard the lonely far off wail of a steam locomotive’s whistle? You might expect that a train’s whistle would sound the same, night or day, summer or winter but what you expect is not necessarily what you get.

Night, due to the cooler air has as much the ability to change sound as does snow on a cold winter’s night when it muffles and even mutes what might otherwise be harsh and strident.

Have you heard the squabbling of raccoons in the night?

This is such a terrifying, banshee sound that it can set your hair on end and the imagination soaring in wonderment One of the strangest, most puzzling assaults one can experience on the auditory senses is that fantastical screaming and quarreling of several raccoons fighting.

The first two times that I heard this mad banshee expression of bedlam I had no clue what it was but I followed it through the woods for nearly a mile before it was broken up for whatever reason. Each of these times the demented screaming seemed to come more from up in the trees than on the ground but it was difficult to tell due to the fact that the sound was constantly moving.

The two times that I have actually witnessed the murderous mob attack of raccoons, water was involved and contrary to what one might imagine it was not to fight off some attacker, some creature alien to raccoon society but each time the attackers were focusing all of their fury upon one of their own kind and the wild caterwauling signaled a battle to the death.

Perhaps this was a territorial dispute, an intruder being forced out by the mob? Whatever the reason, it was fast, noisy and final.

Or perhaps you have heard a bobcat scream in the deep, shadowy recesses of the night.

One of my favorite night sounds that I enjoyed then and still do is the deep, bass Brumm, brumm, brumm of the bullfrog, or the higher pitched trill of amorous toads summoning a mate.

And then there is the lonely, raucous squawk of a great blue heron as he settles in for the night way up in the top of one of the large cottonwoods.

Or how about the haunting, ‘hoo, hoo-hoo, HOO HOO’ of the tiger of the air, the great horned owl, and the tremulous, descending wail of the screech owl.

These are just some of the night sounds.

Sometimes as a boy far in the distance of time and space I would hear the unforgettable wail of a hunters horn ‘Ahoooo’ing’, as he summoned his hounds. It is rare indeed if not impossible to hear that mysterious sound today for it is mostly a thing only remembered.

There is something mysterious about the sound of hounds working out a cold trail.
‘Ahwoo, ahwoo, ahwooo—. At first there is only the usual night sounds as you wait, anxiously wait for the inevitable. Time passes as you stare into the darkness and then you hear the strike dog calling the others to her as she informs them that she has found the trail.

Soon the other hounds join in and you follow them with your ears as you stare into the night. Soon the baying of the dogs becomes more frequent, five, even ten seconds between those melodious calls and then the frequency increases as the trail becomes warmer until soon there is a crescendo of excited almost frantic sound to indiicate that the quarry has taken to a tree.

Or how about that sweet music of crickets fiddling or the squeak and rustle of mice in the grass or perhaps a sleepy bird’s low chirp.

These then are just some of the sounds in the night, can you think of any others?

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