As I have mentioned in earlier posts when ever I leave recording gear unattended in the woods it always gets inspected by forest creatures. And usually those animals are small, such as raccoons, possums or mice. Once in awhile the inspector might be a White-tailed Deer such as happened on the 4th of May 2011. And sometimes I am left to just wonder what or who the visitor was. This happened on the 30th of March, 2011.
Recently I have been recording full-time at an area close to my home that I refer to as the Groves. It was originally pasture land but now the trees and brush are gradually taking it back over. There are quite a few cows and one bull in this pasture. It is close to a country home where the resident no longer lives but comes out and feeds and waters his 10 dogs a couple of times a week.
Belle and a nameless Black Angus bull sizing each other up in New Mexico in 2005.
My interest lies in the fact that the dogs go wild barking at certain times. I am suspicious that something is coming in from the woods, irritating the dogs and then leaving. My goal is to record these other animals. I have recorded what sounds like yells, whistles and last October I recorded what appears to be whispering.
On the 17th of this month I recorded a 45 minute segment of something that was very close to my recorder and microphones. All the sounds and movement appears to be of a cow. But it is still interesting to have the recording to compare against other unseen animals.
This log is about 20 feet log and 3 feet high. I placed my recorder on the other side in between the two adjoining logs assuming the cows could not get into that area.
The short version of the sounds can be listened to here: Â Short Version
And the longer (45 minute full segment) can be listened to here: Full Version
Very interesting, Stan. As I listened the first time through, I thought of two things:
Foraging—the entity making the sounds is rooting around in a systematic manner.
Normal Background Sounds—the normal chatter of creatures in the background continues throughout. No sudden silencing of the creatures sometimes reported in connection to a sasquatch sighting.
This has me easily imaging a cow grazing.
And then a plane flies over and the sound abrupty sliences and/or moves away. I don't see a cow doing that.
Thanks for the efforts Stan, and for posting these things for us all to review. I've been a longtime fan of the website.
Scott M
Scott, As I continue to get new recordings I may find out it is just a cow. I think one thing that intrigued me was the fast breathing in a couple of places. It is difficult because although there are cattle at this location, there is also a Class A sighting and I have many recordings of voices and whistles. As far as the background being quiet, I have only witnessed that one time, maybe that is more consistent with a large dominant male passing through. Whatever was making this sound was close, very close to be recorded this well.
Thanks,
Stan
Hey Stan:
Just going on gut instincts here.
The 45 minute post does get interesting in the last quarter. But all through it, I hear breathing through the "nose", shuffling of "feet" as if hooves are sliding and pawing, very little twig and branch breaking underfoot, and lotsa critter and birdsong as well as what sounded like the bull asking what the heck was going on at your recording site.
Your 3/30/11 recording I realize was from the night. However, there's twig snapping and at points, the breathing through the nasal cavity stops. Not that the breathing necessarily does, but breathing through an open mouth on a human can be completely silent effortlessly. Harder to be silent to breathe through the nose IF you want to remain silent. The sniffer pt 3 is almost all nasal breathing constantly without a break. In Sniffer pt 1 and 2, the breathing audio goes still.
The discrepancy in twig snapping and branch breaking from one recording to another can be a factor of the weather, i.e. how wet the ground and deadfall is, etc; so I do understand that changing weather from the time of one recording to another can explain the sounds we hear in one recording and the sounds we don’t in the other.
Other than what I presented, I can't pinpoint why; I just sense you've got hooved critters with smaller surface area on their footsies in your sniffer pt 3 than the critters in The Sniffer, parts 1 and 2, and different breathing.
As always for what it's worth.
T – Sniffer # 2 is a White-tailed Deer.
Hi Stan – great website! I visit often with great anticipation. Is there a reason you aren't coupling video with the audio to take some of the guesswork out of identifying the source of the sound?
TF,
The experience of many researchers is that the minute you put up cameras the squatches vacate the area. I would love to have a thermal but even at that you could not run it all the time. Presently I am running 4 & 5 digital recorders non-stop. Audio is very non-aggressive way to get in close to these animals. Any video would only be controversial as well.
Stan
I highly doubt that could be a cow,the movement is to quick and deliberate.cows are very slow and clumsy. the breathing is not right for a cow either.
it seems to be a large animal by the amount of air exhaled.
where any of the logs or branches broke or moved ?
if possible you should try to set up a trail cam or video cam.
I think it would be worth the effort.
nice find and good luck
My interest is solely audio recording. Game-cams are contraindicated for continued activity. They see them and usually vacate the area.