Do Bf's Mimic Sounds Other Animals Make?

[Guest jsbelljr83]

Has anyone ever had any experiences with BF mimicking the sounds other animals make?  Two weeks ago I was on an expedition to PA, can't say where or with whom, I stayed for two nights, it was my first time in the field.  Anyhow, the first night we heard what we thought was a BF mimicking two separate dogs barking, more so it sounded as if there were two BF communicating and using the dogs barking to mask their calls. It's hard to describe what exactly we heard, the sounds were coming for well over 150 yards away though various hardwood trees, and the "night noise", crickets and tree frogs, were extremely loud. 

         We would hear one dog bark and maybe a second later we heard a sound almost like the first dogs bark, coming from very close to the dog, then a second or two later the second dog would bark, it was located maybe 50-60 yards from the first dog, and same thing, another sound almost identical to the second dog, like a barking noise.  I do know several folks had their recorders with them, dummy me left mine behind.

           Then the next night we were at a separate location, the primary witness, a young friend of his and myself were walking up a steep gravel road to our destination when to my right I heard what sounded like a bullfrog "grunt", the only problem was the sound came from about 4' off the ground.  This came from the edge of a small bowl like depression, maybe 75 yards wide and 100+ yards deep, the brush on the outer edge was about 6 feet off the road and maybe 4' high. I asked the witness if there was a marsh in that section and he said no, all briars, etc, nothing that would attract a bullfrog.  I did have my digital recorder with me but didn't have it on. 

       I grew up by a marsh so I know what a bull frog sounds like and it was one distinct grunt, but again what was odd was that it was about 4' off the ground.  The moon was so bright we didn't need any illumination and I didn't want to shine my red lensed headlamp where I heard the noise so as not to let whatever it know that we heard it.

        We did get a reply to several hand claps from that same little depression, I need to try to clean up the audio recording to see if I can bring the reply back.  We had 3 BF's around us, one to the front in that depression, one to our far right and one behind us.  The witness and his friend saw eye shine several times, I never did because I was concentrating on the area in front where I heard the bullfrog call.  It was partially backlit from a industrial complex that was maybe 300 yards down the hill.  We never heard any sounds of anything moving, the night noises wee very loud.  The only time they would stop was one of the two times we had stones thrown near us, each time that occurred the BF would move closer to us, again, we never heard anything moving through the grass.

[Old Dog]

One can not say if a BF mimics other animal sounds with out actually seeing a BF do it.  One can make that supposition, but it can't be held as fact without witnessing the act of mimicry.  Also, at night and in the woods, it would be quite hard to tell the height of emanation of a sound.  Sound is not something that is that linear in focus.  Sound waves disperse as the travel if I'm not mistaken.  So what sounds somewhat close and at a certain height, could be further away and lower to the ground but at a higher volume.  Too many variables with out having any visual confirmation of what and where the sound is coming from.  Meh, that's my take at any rate.  Make of it what you will.

[Guest]

jsbelljr83- yeah one of my close encounters was of Sasquatches imitating #1 a peacock but much, much louder and also the other Sas making toungue popping sounds which could of been a return locate reply on soft wood.

[Guest jsbelljr83]

Old Dog, the "bull frog" sound I heard was less than 6 feet to my right, the sound was slightly lower than my ear, and according to the witness I was with there no water within that depression, no frogs would have been living there. 

[Guest]

jsbell, if you do a search you will find some really great threads on the forums about this subject.  I was going to link a few for you, but there are so many that go off in different directions I wasn't certain which would interest you.  Some say they mimic other animals, sounds, and even human speech.  

 

Very interesting stuff in the older threads - 

[Guest Urkelbot]

Peacocks aren't even native to north America it would make no sense for Sasquatch to imitate one where would they even learn this at a zoo.

[Guest]

Interesting point Urkelbot.  They may not be native to North America, but I have lived in areas where they were living and roaming free.  Two areas in particular were Monterey, CA and an area in FL.

[Guest]

Urklebot- there are even pet  peacocks on some ranches, seen them on a ranch in West Sacramento. Had a freind who said they were a good alarm system on their horse ranch.

[Guest jsbelljr83]

ptangier, I grew up in the country and had a very good friend who's Dad raised peacocks, they are excellent alarm system!!!

[GuyInIndiana]

  Anyhow, the first night we heard what we thought was a BF mimicking two separate dogs barking, more so it sounded as if there were two BF communicating and using the dogs barking to mask their calls. It's hard to describe what exactly we heard, the sounds were coming for well over 150 yards away though various hardwood trees, and the "night noise", crickets and tree frogs, were extremely loud. 

 

So then, why did/do you jump to that conclusion above? People make all sorts of unsubstanciated claims. So, sure, you're going to get people to answer your question with "yes, they do and I've experienced it"... so then that will give you permission and freedom to assume you did too. Eventually, you'll tell people that "bigfoot definately imitates other sounds out in the woods because I've experienced it"... with nothing more than confirmation bias because someone else believes they have too.

 

This is how the legends and myths associated with BF become larger than life. It's unfortunate. Stick to what is verifiable.

Edited September 29, 2013 by GuyInIndiana

[Old Dog]

Old Dog, the "bull frog" sound I heard was less than 6 feet to my right, the sound was slightly lower than my ear, and according to the witness I was with there no water within that depression, no frogs would have been living there.

Did you go into that depression to verify that there was no water?  Did you also verify that there was absolutely no bullfrogs in that immediate area?  Are you assuming that there is absolutely no frogs there so thus, it must be BF?  See what I'm getting at?  When one makes statements of fact with no proof, all the questions come out that should have been answered by the observer in the first place.  It very well may have been BF making those noises, but with out visual proof, who knows?  One cannot go on assumptions alone.

[Guest]

And if someone trucks in that slab monkey tomorrow, do remember that the BF out there are probably outnumbered millions to one by every other species on the continent, so it's **** high odds that it actually is a bigfoot, WHEN bigfoot is confirmed and IF confirmed to be a mimic...

 

It's also outnumbered millions to one by KNOWN mimics, ie ravens, other crow species, thrushes, escaped budgies (There colonies of those some places) etc

[Guest jsbelljr83]

I didn't go into the depression because the witness who was with me lived his whole life right down the street from where we were.  As far as the mimicking of dogs, I was relating what two of the "seasoned investigators" were saying.  We had 11 people with us the first night, no noise discipline whatsoever, everytime someone heard a sound 3+ people were chiming in on what it could have been.  The second night I was with two people, much quieter, if we heard something we would all turn towards the sound, very little talking. 

     In my opinion the first night we were hearing the echo's of the dogs barking, they sounded to be large dogs, and were very agitated, this wasn't two dogs "chatting" with each other.  But, since this was my very first expedition I had nothing to go on other than the opinions of others. 

[Guest jsbelljr83]

Also, the bull frog croak I heard was the only one we heard all night, and we stayed at the same spot for 3+ hrs. 

[Sasfooty]

I used to hear one occasionally that didn't seem to care whether he was near the pond or in my back yard. In this recording he also seemed to be communicating with something that was making discreet knocks.

 

Yes they do mimic animals,  AND birds, insects, people, sirens, amphibians & anything else that they want to mimic. I have several recordings of one practicing to make the exact sound that a colt that we had for awhile made. He got it down to a fine art, & after Hubby sold the colt, his sounds lingered on here for months.

Bullfrog.wav