One Thing Bothers Me About Bigfoot Tree Knocks

[Trogluddite]

On 4/18/2017 at 10:09 PM, gigantor said:

I hears some knocks too.

 

On 4/22/2017 at 0:55 PM, SWWASAS said:

.... If we are seeing BF carrying around poles or sticks,  are we missing something in their behavior?       Perhaps they do use tools in certain circumstances and we have simply not observed it enough to know.....  

 

On 4/18/2017 at 0:46 AM, gigantor said:

....

Knocks With One Loud One - amped.mp3

 

On 4/18/2017 at 10:40 PM, southernyahoo said:

....

2-9-08-2-knocks.wav

 

My $0.02, I clearly heard wood-on-wood knocks in both files.  Not human hammering, or distant car doors, or gunfire (no echo).  It makes me think of a shillelagh, which can serve as a modest walking stick, a night stick for probing around in tangles and such, or a club to knock some lout over the head with.  What's problematic is that there are so few encounters where a Bigfoot is seen with a club or stick.  I am approaching 1,000 reports and I'm fairly confident that the number of encounters in which a Bigfoot is seen, shillelagh in hand, is less than 20.  

 

That being said, maybe it doesn't carry it's club around all the time.  You prepare for the mission you're going on.  If you're foraging roots and berries, you don't need a club.  If you're travelling by yourself from point A to point B, you don't need a club to communicate.  If you're solo hunting, all you need to do is bushwhack a deer and wring it's neck, no club needed.  But a Bigfoot that's hunting or traveling with a group, or serving as the outer ring of security would know it's mission and - since it knows it may need to communicate - grab a stick before moving out.  

[Catmandoo]

I do not pay attention to wood knock type sounds in the Western Washington areas where I research. I have books about animals and birds to assist me with my animal inventory. Several bird books have been very helpful.

Years ago, I was hiking up a snow covered road to do a seasonal altitude check at a track way site. I was followed by 'wood knock type' sounds coming from behind and above me. A repetition rate of 5 'knocks' was repeated with a pause between sessions. The repetition was precise and seemed mechanical in the accuracy. This followed me up the road. I could not see the emitter. Too much snow for pursuit. This happened repeatedly. When all the snow had melted, I was at my relic track way and the 'emitter' visited me. A Sooty Grouse (then a Blue Grouse) dropped out of a pine tree like a dying 'Hail Mary' pass and landed several feet away from me. Interesting bird. A game bird that is very tame. The Sooty Grouse makes a series of deep 'hoots' that are loud and can be heard about 1/2 mile away. Older bird books describe the Sooty ( Blue ) Grouse as being 'ventriloqual'. However, ventriloquism is a human entertainment term and modern texts describe the vocalizations of the Sooty Grouse as 'difficult to locate'. The 'hoots' are loud and sound like wood on wood.

If I heard he Dusky Grouse when I was in Eastern Washington I was not aware of the whoot. The Dusky Grouse makes  single 'whoot' when they are displaying to a female. The whoot can be heard from a mile away.

 

If you do not have eyes on the emitter, then you are guessing.

 

My 'inventory' research book selection covers birds, mammals, reptiles, amphibians, fishes,  insects and clouds. A lot of time can be consumed trying to identify a vocalization/noise. I have vocalizations that are older than 10 years that I can't identify.

 

FYI: Santana is the Father of Wood Knocking

Edited April 29, 2017 by Catmandoo
additional words and grammar

[bipedalist]

I had some familiarity with these grouse in the Colonel Bob Wilderness a few years back, it was extremely difficult to localize the ridges and such where the sounds were coming from but they communicated across river valleys there quite easily.  Quite entertaining but so frequent they began to get on my nerves after awhile.  

 

Carlos was the King of Percussion for sure

 

 

Edited April 29, 2017 by bipedalist
add Rock Idol

[Catmandoo]

Sooty Grouse are entertaining until they call back and forth across a watershed................all night. Not to be outdone by the Barred Owls.....all night long.

Those who need help identifying a 'wildlife noise' can go online to  The Cornell Lab of Ornithology & Macaulay Library.

 

[Trogluddite]

Here is another site, although they don't have a sooty grouse recording. http://www.enature.com/birding/audio.asp 

[SWWASAS]

Catmandoo:    " If you do not have eyes on the emitter, then you are guessing. "          That is very true and certainly has dashed my expectations of what is producing a strange sound several times.      But it is probably easier for some people to assume BF than spend the effort to really know.      I still find the mundane explanations for a noise maker interesting even if it is two trees rapping together in the wind.  

[wiiawiwb]

It's one thing to hear a wood knock. It's altogether different to hear a wood knock in response to one you've done. In the former case, it is something done for certain rreasons we can speculate about (warning). In the latter case, it is clearly meant to be their reaction to something they've heard.

 

There were two times I've heard a wood knock. The first was in response to a wood knock I did. It could have been a human but I wouldn't bet on it. No way to tell for sure as the terrain was accessible from every direction.

 

The second, and most recent, wood-knock incident occurred in an area just across the pond that I had been in only a few hours early. It was very slow and difficult travel by daylight, with thick forest and lots of blown down. There is no direct way to get to the area where the knock came from except through the area I was in. By night, there is no way a human could be mobil without benefit of a flashlight and I would have heard them anyway. I'm convinced beyond any shadow of a doubt that knock was not human caused and it happened within ten seconds of my knock.

[gigantor]

On 4/29/2017 at 3:37 PM, Catmandoo said:

I was followed by 'wood knock type' sounds coming from behind and above me. A repetition rate of 5 'knocks' was repeated with a pause between sessions. The repetition was precise and seemed mechanical in the accuracy. This followed me up the road. I could not see the emitter. Too much snow for pursuit. This happened repeatedly. When all the snow had melted, I was at my relic track way and the 'emitter' visited me. A Sooty Grouse (then a Blue Grouse) dropped out of a pine tree like a dying 'Hail Mary' pass and landed several feet away from me

 

Catmandoo, I think your assumption of the "sound emitter" being a Grouse is....  incorrect.

 

Here are Sooty Grouse calls from several sites, including Cornell which you suggested. Not one of them sounds even remotely like wood knocks.

 

Cornell Sooty (Blue) Blue Grouse Intro

Cornell Lab of Ornithology - drumming.

Cornell - calls - wing beating

IBC Bird Collection

Bird Song ID

 

 

 

[Catmandoo]

Gigantor, I listened to the Cornell file. Very wimpy.  I will try to record Sooty Grouse. The Sooty Grouse went away. Possibly shot since they are good tasting game birds. Might be awhile before I find more.......  like summer.  I have recordings of wicked Barred Owls from my area that are different than Cornell samples. Comparing audio from different habitats is interesting and takes a lot of time.

[churchill]

This may sound stupid but as mentioned a few pages back, i think some of these knocks (during daylight) can be attributed to wood-peckers...Are they nocturnal: I dont know.

As a hunter in eastern Canada ive seen this behavior several times from tree-stands. They will moove from tree to tree (usually hardwoods) and test them for what i guess is dampness or penatration depth.

They will usually give them 3 to 5 hard wacks in one spot about 6 inches in diameter and depending on the size of the bird and hardness of the trunk the sound will be like a baseball bat hitting that tree.

 

Now i'm no wood-****** expert but the ones we have here that make that much commotion are about crow sized, they will lean back to about a 45 degree angle before wacking and take a two or three second break between each peck.

Just my two cents.   

[dlaw]

One of the times I've heard "wood knocks" was in response to my 3 whacks on a tree just a little before dark. I heard 3 distinct "knocks" from 3 different locations; one was from a small stand of bamboo (what we call "cane breaks" in the South) about  250-300 yds away, another was from what I think was a cane break in a different direction, and the other was from back in a "holler".   No other people around.   I believe they lay up in secluded places during the day and these wood knocks were"locators"  used to tell other BF's their location, and harder to pinpoint than vocalizations, hence harder to discover their locations.

[Hammer102492]

On 1/9/2017 at 1:00 AM, BobbyO said:

 

This.

 

I don't believe all wood knocks, are wood knocks.

 

_{I have been made aware of the theory of it not being wood knocks.  It makes sense to me because I have wondered why they can often all sound the same.}

 

My question now is, has anyone ever heard a POW sound?  It's not a "knock" as traditionally heard.  I have a recording of it.  Won't get it until after the OBC, but yeah, strange sound.  I don't know what is causing it.  

[BobbyO]

I also think that so many of our descriptions of what "we" hear are described wrong where this subject and noises are concerned.

 

A thud is a thump, a howl is a scream and a thump is a knock etc etc etc.

 

Just a tonne of weird noises in the woods.