One aspect of leaving unattended recorders running continuously in the woods is recording very unusual and bizarre sounds. Two years in a row now I have recorded odd animals that no one has been able to adequately identify.

Around the 5th of May, 2010 I recorded this new sound. It was recorded using a Samson H-2 recorder and a small remote microphone.  The location was in a lightly wooded oak and hickory forest here in Central Illinois. It was several hundred yards from the nearest creek and also about 30 feet from a country road.

Here is the sound: Weird Sound

It was suggested that I contact the Illinois State Museum in Springfield, Illinois. I sent them the sound clip and got the following response.

“Dave Bohlen (ornithologist), Dr. Meredith Mahoney (herpetologist) and I [Tim Cashatt] (entomologist) listened to your recording and could not identify the sound.”

The internet is a wonderful resource and I posted it both on naturerecordists, which is a Yahoo Group made up hundreds of folks interested in recording the sounds of nature, and also on my Facebook page.

I received many responses ranging from cicadas to frogs.

If anyone has a suggestion please leave a comment.