What made this noise?

[Harrier]

I did a three-day hog hunting/camping trip in the Sam Houston National Forest late last week. While set up at a pond in the evening, I was startled right at sunset by very loud, sharp noises coming from the tops of pine trees surrounding the pond. I recorded it with the voice memo program in my phone, but can’t figure out how to attach it here.

It was a sound I’d never heard before, and it sounded more electronic than animal. Everything I look up suggests cicadas, but this wasn’t rhythmic like cicadas — it was sharp bursts of growl-like noises, more like feedback coming from an amplifier than anything else, definitely coming from high up in the trees. I couldn’t see anything making the noise, and it didn’t occur anywhere else. I was camped half a mile away under other pine trees, and no noise.

Any ideas? Bird, tree frog, insect? Aliens?

 

[Nick87]

Anybody camped near by?

 

[gouch]

Barn Owls can make some strange loud noises from the trees.

 

[MThuntr]

Night Hawks?

 

[BrentD]

Tree frogs - or some similar anuran. I think. Maybe. Probably wrong.

But it's that time of year.

 

[deer_shooter]

Sounds Squatchy

 

[Harrier]

Tree frogs - or some similar anuran. I think. Maybe. Probably wrong.

But it's that time of year.

I think you’re on to it. Still not quite what I heard, but this comes closest:

Not really a soothing nighttime sound. Not symmetrical (if that can be used to describe a sound) like other ribbit frogs.

 

[OntarioHunter]

Night Hawks?

I was going to suggest that. We also called them "bullbats" Scary noise when you don't know what it is.

 

[OntarioHunter]

I think you’re on to it. Still not quite what I heard, but this comes closest:

Not really a soothing nighttime sound. Not symmetrical (if that can be used to describe a sound) like other ribbit frogs.

I've never seen a leopard frog 8n trees.

 

[Harrier]

I was going to suggest that. We also called them "bullbats" Scary noise when you don't know what it is.

Nope, the call was longer, lower and more vibrato. All good thoughts though.

 

[Trailsend]

I have heard some weird noises come from birds. Owls, nighthawks as already mentioned, but also some off your night herons and bitterns can also make some goofy sounds. As well as insects.

 

[OntarioHunter]

Ah, I forgot about blue herons. They roost at the top of trees and more often than not in conifers. I have only heard them make a singular noise as they lit - "Groink!" Other than roosting I've never heard a heron make a sound.

 

[MTLabrador]

Tree frogs - or some similar anuran. I think. Maybe. Probably wrong.

But it's that time of year.

That was my thought. Especially next to a pond. I don’t know what the Texas equivalent of boreal chorus frogs is, but that’s exactly how I would describe their sound.

 

[nastynate]

Some tree frog options that might be in Texas. Tops of trees and near ponds makes tree frogs a good possibility. Of course could be something else too...

 

[urge2hunt901]

Night Hawks?

 

[Northwoods]

Porcupines make some crazy noises.

 

[EastTNHunter]

Raccoon?

 

[recon6036]

Mountain House reaction?

 

[dirtclod Az.]

Tree climbing Chupacabra!

 

[Straight Arrow]

Anybody camped near by?

Cushman's cousin after a five-alarm chili fest?!