When first beginning to research a few years ago, I made my way into a wooded area and was setting up to take a few pics of a suspicious bent tree stucture when I heard a loud vocalization from about 50 yards ahead of me from deeper in the woods...

Went kind of like this' "ho-ho-ho-HO-HO-HO-HO-HO-HO-HO-HO!!!!!!

It was very sudden and extremely deep and loud. I exited stage left quickly after. Anyone else ever hear a sound similar to this??? Just curious.

DJ, Well, ... yes ... I have heard something like that before, but never from deep in the woods.

Were eight tiny reindeer involved?

kiddinggggg... I can't say I've heard anything like that coming out of the woods.

Last week I saw some dude chasing a girl down the street, he made some sounds like that!

Santa, or a barred owl!

Barred owls will make a sound similar to what you've described. It isn't the normal "who cooks for you" call they make though so a lot of people aren't familiar with it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fppKGJD3Y6c...feature=related

If your in the woods at night and a barred owl vocalizes it can make you go in your pants!!!!!

Yeah, kinda like this?
Click to view attachment

SY.

Yeah it can. I love them though! Even if nothing else is going on, if I can hear the owls and coyotes I'm happy.


But, D.J. says this: Deep like Barry White deep?

Nice clear recording southernyahoo! I added it to my audio file. Discojelly, how about rcording yourself imitating the sound you heard and upload it so we have a better idea of what you heard?

I was camping once in Ohio, and an owl roosted right above my tent. The volume of its cry was unbelievable. I started throwing rocks up in the tree in the middle of the night. Very very loud.

Great recording quality! If this is yours, can I ask what you used to record it?

This was my brothers recording, but we use the same setup. The microphone is a rather inexpensive unit, it's called the Sonic Super Ear seen at this link

http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/gadgets/sonic-s...ning-194296.php

The mic was placed in a parabola and mounted on a tripod just outside his tent, and a 1/8 jack stereo patch cord was run inside his tent where the signal was recorded on his Sony camcorder DCR TRV103 digital 8. We don't allways record this way but he wanted to be able to change the tape when it ran out and monitor the sounds as long as he could before falling asleep. I think having the recorder so far away from the mic helped reduce tape motor noise that is evident in some of our other recordings. The owl was close in this one, and we may have been aimed straight at it with the dish, but we've gotten pretty good recordings without being aimed straight on before, with this setup.

SY.

In response to the original question here about HO vocals, I'll share another recording from Louisiana. This one is probably coyotes for the most part.....whether there is something else out there with them is anyones guess. I do hear a single HO in it.

Click to view attachment

Merry Christmas yall !

SY.

Actually I had thought about doing just that....cause from what I have seen posted, the owl sounds are not it. This was DEEP, and loud..So ya, I will try to get a recording of myself repeating the same sound as best I can. That sound never left my head after hearing it...so, stay tuned.

southernyahoo,

That is exactly what these bloody owls do, not even 12 feet outside my bedroom window (nearly every night). It's also the same call that my (late) wife and I heard one night around 1:00 am as we were just getting out of our car in the driveway. Scared the livin' daylights out of us. They seemed to be particularly fond of that screaming call at the beginning of the vocalization.
Four years now of having them in my yard vocalizing nearly every night, the last few weeks have been eerily silent. I wonder if they moved on. Also, it seems to me their high volume level is out of proportion to their fairly diminutive size. Freaky...

Discojelly,

That vocalization you've described looks reminiscent of a gorilla "huffing" type of vocalization I believe I've heard before. Now, if I can remember what nature show I heard it on.

Mike, if you remember, can you post or PM me? I really would like to hear the gorilla huffing...

I was sitting my deer stand one morning before daybreak and an owl must have been sitting in a tree right behind me. It vocalized and it was so loud it almost scared the stew out of me! lol

Will do. I'm thinking it had to be on PBS because that's the only station I get that has broadcasts of that type.

Nightwing, Here's the sound.

Click to view attachment

I got a barred owl recorded from extremely close range and it was LOUD...

Not the 'Ho' vocal, but one of their typical rolling chatter calls...

You can listen HERE.

could be a great horned owl. They have more of a ho ho hoo call.

kat

Awesome! Thanks for posting. I love coyotes yelps. Good thing I live basically in the desert.

Your welcome AZnative 24! Sorry to side track the thread, but I do enjoy recording nature sounds, it's natures music for many of us. Here's a couple more coyote recordings for reference on vocals.

This is my favorite of the most typical territorial calls. The coyotes, crickets, chuckswills widows, and pine beetles make for a pleasant soundscape in this one. Recorded with the same setup as described in post #14.

Click to view attachment

This one is more unusual, and has a lot of wooing, yips and a nice yodel at the end. One of the vocals goes for about 10 seconds without a break in this recording.

Click to view attachment

Enjoy,

SY.

Yikes......THAT'S it. Exactly...except with a more long "O" sound at the end of each huff. But that's exactly what I heard.

Thanks Mike!

Those are great! If you don't mind I would like to add them to my small but growing animal call collection.

Sure thing AZnative 24

SY