Are there any Midwestern birds with a call similar to the first part of this Peacock Cry?

I had a nice "conversation" with something making a sound like this last summer during one of our campouts that went on from maybe 1:00 am till daylight. I thought it was similar to the peacock call, but it bugged me that it was only the first part- the initial screech, without the "awooawooawoo" after it.

Any ideas?

-Sarge

I've heard some owls that made similar sounds. Owls make a wide variety of very loud and strange sounds at times.

One more thing...an owl is very respondent when you start calling back to them in similar fashion. They will answer you nearly everytime and will often even come closer to you.

Around here (Jensen Beach Florida) we have a lot of wild peacocks running around. If anyone remembers Frances Langford a big movie star back in the 30's and 40's. She lived here for a long time. She had a big estate and had peacocks running around. Over the years many got out and so forth and just turned wild. So not any where around Jensen beach and the surrounded area you can see and here them. Growing up around here from the age of 9 to today I know their calls very well.

My mother has moved back to Indiana where all of our family lives and are from. Times I have been up there visiting I have heard what sounded like peacocks but just seemed a little off. I have always figured that someone there also had some as a pet or something. And like here over the years some just turned wild and are just running around like here. I have always figured the small difference in their sound is just like different people from different people sound different as well as other animals some times.

From reading this I guess it could be some sort of different animal and not a peacock at all that I hear up in Indiana. Here I know what it is as you can see them. But up there I have never been able to see what made the sound. Someone who has heard a peacock most times will always remember the sound. They as far as I know make a call unlike any other bird or animal. The next time I am up there I just might try to track down what is making the calls. It is not something we heard every day or anything. I would say the last time I was up there I was their for a month and a half. I might of heard this sound 2 or 3 times the whole time I was there. It was in the evenings as far as I can remember as I was sitting on the back porch having a smoke.

Yeah, I remember the first time I heard one of those calls in person- It was about 15 years ago, and I was up visiting some friends in a little suburb, outside Indy. A bunch of us were sitting on the trunks of our cars shooting the breeze, and all of a sudden the bird cut loose a couple hundred feet away, and I almost jumped out of my skin!

I looked at the guy who lived there like "Wuuuuhh"? And he told me his neighbor a couple houses down had a pair of peacocks.

Now, I'd hear the sound plenty of times before, I think they used it in every old Tarzan movie ever made, but hearing it in person was a heck of a surprise, how loud it was and how far it carried.

BTW, I just threw in LMS to listen to the sound they were anylyzing and noticed it's pretty close to what I heard too- play the peacock call again, then jump to the sound on LMS. Again, the one I heard didn't have the peacock's repeating "Awoo" follow-ups.

Did they ever figure out what the LMS sound was?

-Sarge

It always amazed me, the range of vocalizations mastered by the peacock!
My favorite is the "Pal Mal! Pal Mal! Pal Mal!" cry, so prominent around those country estates in England. Like in a good Sherlock Holmes movie...maybe the Hounds of the Baskervilles!

A couple (at least in Michigan) do have a sound very much like the first part of your sound clip.
During the day and evening, it could have been a flicker(a type of woodpecker). They sound JUST like peacocks, at times(just the initial scream).
At night, like has been noted, both barred owls and screech owls make that sound..barred owls in particular make a sound that is almost indistinquishable from you file.
And like welby noted, they almost always answer you , and often will come closer!