http://macaulaylibrary.org/audio/41832

The ones I've heard here aren't quite as strident, and are kinda softer and more horsey sounding.... when they do that sort of snort, nostril whistle thing from deep cover about 12 feet away when you hadn't spotted them yet, that makes you jump.

Yep, got a recording of those from texas. This deer was stomping it's hoof too. It apparently was upset with the foreign object placed in the tree. It must have smelled it.

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Just as a side note, in my research area I heard these identical calls not long after several tree crash incidents that were VERY suspicious. And yes, nervous was I.
It was not until several weeks later however that I got to see the culprit actually make the calls. A buck descended the mountain in full view after breaking cover snorting this bellow. He was protecting two does who then came out behind him (and yes he did a hoof stomp along with the snorts). I was between them and the local watering hole and they were not real happy about it. I watched him make the call several times before they all headed back to cover up and away. I was very reassured that it was white-tail let me tell you.

Sometimes it amazing the vocals everyday animals can make. I’ve seen a whitetail deer whistle, a loud whistle, sounded human like to me.

I was checking cattle before daylight one morning and heard a baby crying I searched the area around an hour thinking someone had abandon a baby in the cow pasture. I was perplexed by this for years and was talking to a neighbor and he experienced the same vocal while hunting and as I did, he searched for a baby and he advised he saw a fox making a human baby crying vocal some time later.

The other day before daylight my daughters 3 month old kitten was missing for his breakfast, I thought I heard a kitten crying in the cow pasture and took off looking for him in the pasture, what I fund was an owl sitting in a tree making a vocal like a kitten crying. When I returned to the house the kitten was waiting on the door step.

I hear that same sound all the time coming from the woods just behind my house. When I opened the link just now, my dog went nuts, jumped up on the window barking and stared at the woods behind the house!

Funny, cheap thrills with some of this audio, at the expense of friends, family and pets sometime. I was wondering if anyone had ever heard these calls go back and forth between white-tail, in other words more than one deer at a time make the calls nearby as if they were set off by one another or maybe used them for alarm calls from one small herd to another. It definitely seemed like an alarm call to me the way the two does ran to his hindquarters after he made the clearing first and made several calls?

When I've been closer to those sorts of sounds, it usually seems like an alarm call, and a "Go away or I shall huff at you some more... there!... and now I shall run 20 yards and flick my tail at you, take that!"

From what I've heard, a deer may do this if you stop and settle down somewhere, they will get uneasy and come to see where you went or find you, because you are not being noisey anymore, and thats when they will blow at you. Perhaps this is because being still or quiet is a predatory behavior.

SY.

Interesting, and that would explain the reaction that day I picked up on the sound and made the sighting, I had been entering an area and then quietly stopped, waited and observed without a lot of extra movement. I was pretty determined to figure out what was making the noise, but didn't have to really move toward it, to find out as it played out.

I'm sitting with my 6th period class right now while they finish up their daily assignment. I have four 6 inch speakers in the ceiling. Should I play this?

Ahhh, yep that's almost exactly what happened in the "12 foot away" incident.I was walking a trail and something stopped me, got that "something's there" feeling or heard a faint noise. So I was stopped still blinking in the sunshine after just having come out of a treed over part, looking around and **SNORT** WTF??? gah, EYES!!!! damn calm down it's a deer for chrissake.

I did it! None of them knew what it was. Here were the guesses:

Water bird
Monkey
Squirrel
Woverine
Bobcat...

...just goes to show you how little most of us know about animal sounds.

Amazing experiment Robert!

Good job Robert!

A couple of years ago, I was sitting in a lean to stand deer hunting. It was not a very comfortable stand and my butt and back got so stiff that I just had to stand up and stretch.

Just as I stood up, I heard something and looked around the tree to find 3 doe and a yearling standing there staring straight up at me. All 3 of the doe started snorting at me and stomping the ground. Further behind them, I heard an answering blow but never saw that deer. The 4 of them stood still, other than the stomping, on full alert until I slowly sat back down. Then all I saw was 4 white flags heading over the hill.

I heard that snort lots a times when I was a kid back in Alabama hunting whitetails. When ever you heard it you knew you were busted.

Unfortunately I still here that snort once in awhile here in the mountains of New Mexico when hunting Mule Deer. Muley's give that same vocalization when they smell a human.

I havent figured out if they are warning other deer that there is a human in the area or if they are just trying to get the smell out of the nostrils!

It's the deer version of giving the middle finger.

LMAO!

Yes, I've heard that happen alot. One deer will start blowing (some yankee hunters call it "snorting," in Florida we call it "blowing") and another deer 100 yards away will start. Its their way of sounding the alarm to any deer in earshot that something is amiss. When whitetail deer travel and feed in the woods they are often staggered out as individuals or in groups of two or three, with the next individual or group following out of visual range through the undergrowth. When one smells or hear something out of place but cannot visual identify the source that deer may blow. Sometimes the following deer will begin blowing as well and it can become a chain reaction. Other times the offended deer will run and continue to blow as it runs, allowing other deer (and you as the hunter) to track its movements and know its whereabouts as it retreats. A deer blowing is a fairly common sound in the woods.

Sometimes deer also do it in social settings that don't appear to be based on reaction to predators, but even then its usually a sign of distress. Deer that are fighting with each other will sometimes blow. A doe in heat that is being harrassed by a buck will blow sometimes. Bucks will blow sometimes when frustrated by a hot doe that won't let him breed. Bucks can also make a deeper sound called a "growl" that is a deep blow mixed with a belching or bellowing sound. Its just as loud as a regular blow it seems to always be associated with a doe in heat or fighting. I've personally witnessed all of these things from the stand.

Here in WV hearing deer snorting (I'm a yankee) is heard all the time. I have a herd of about 14 deer I feed. They will lay in woods above my house and if I walk out with some corn they will act like a dog and start stretching like here comes dinner. Keepin the does close has produced some Big Bucks in my yard. I had two 8 point bucks fight in my back yard non stop for over 3 hours on one occasion. That was unbelievable... If you are concealed real good and the deer can't make you out, then this type of snorting frenzy will start in an attempt to get you to move.






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