What was that scream?

Factual Questions
1

Last night around 10:00 I heard a scream.

I’m 99% sure it was some sort of bird, but I’m not an ornithologist. I can tell a raptor, but unless it’s a bald eagle I couldn’t say what kind it is.

Anyway, this is in the area of Birch Bay, WA. We’ve been hearing raucous calls that seem to have lessened recently, that we finally identified as coming from the local herons. (Great blue herons, I think.) The scream last night did not sound like that. It was high-pitched, followed by some lower-pitched noises. ‘Whooping crane’ came to my mind, but I’ve never actually heard one and I don’t know if there are any in the area.

I know there are great blue herons, some kinds of ducks, other wading birds (kildeer?), gulls, hawks, bald eagles, crows (or ravens – I can’t tel lthem apart), sparrows, blue jays, some cute little birds whose name I don’t remember, and other birds.

2

Neighbors get a peacock?

3

That thought did occur to me, now that you mention it. The vet has a few peacocks, but she’s at least three miles away. It’s possible that someone else has peacocks. It didn’t quite sound like one, but I only heard it once and was like ‘What the freak!’

4

Could it be a Cascade red fox? Foxes scream.

Here’s a video with various fox calls.

5

Barn owl? Check out the “typical call” on that page.

6

Hm. The pitch is about right. Seems a little scratchy compared to what we heard though. Of course, it was probably a couple of properties away and unexpected.

7

A “screaming” fox once resulted in a police call to my parents rural neighborhood, being mistaken for a human scream…

8

I believe peacocks sleep at night. They do have one of the weirdest and loudest bird calls you are likely to hear in the temperate world. And they like making them all the time.

Barn owls, though, they scream. When I was 19 I spent a summer sleeping in a tipi in a meadow. One night a barn owl settled on the poles and made some comments. Amplified by the megaphone-shaped tipi . . . it was like the angel of death had arrived for our souls. We were disturbed.

9

You don’t live next door to Mr. Wilhelm, do you?

10

It’s coming from inside your house!!

11

Another possibility is the Western Screech Owl, which can live up to its name ;).

12

If this was the southeast, I would have guessed Limpkin-they sound like a banshee.

13

I played some audio for the SO, and she says it wasn’t a screech so it wasn’t the owl. (As I said, it wasn’t so raspy.) She didn’t think the peacock sounded quite like it, but she says it may have been a peacock.

14

And the fox?

15

I snorted. Well done.

16

Yeah, foxes shagging make you think a small child with a speech impediment is being tortured to death. A winner when a densely populated suburb is overrun with the mangy little scavengers and you get to listen to the noise virtually every night…

17

Foxes do make a blood curdling sound. The Dope helped me figure out the sound in this thread.

18

In which case, problem solved: it’s one of his spiders.

19

Funny, that. I only caught a couple GHSs this year.

20

Maybe a Barred Owl? Besides their typical “Who cooks for you?” call, they also make some freaky woman-like screams. You might check out some of the calls on this page.