We used to hear ruffed grouse a lot here 10 years ago, not so much now. They always sounded to me like someone about 100 yards away trying to start a lawn mower with a pull rope. The sound is not really loud, but carries a long way.
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Little Tupper Lake - odd reverberating sounds
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I've heard them in late summer/fall too, though not as often. Someone told me once that it's the young birds practicing so they'll be good at it in the spring, but that may not be true. I've heard young turkeys learning to gobble around this time of year too, a few times.
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I've heard ruffed grouse drum a lot in the fall. I suspect it's probably not so much a mating call, but more of a territorial thing. I've watched turkeys gobble and strut many times in the fall too. Ever have them so close you can feel the "Thummmm" when the go into a full strut and drag their wing tips on the ground? When you hear that sound and feel the vibe, they're really close. That's good stuff!!
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appreciate the comments - certainly never thought of wildlife potentially being the culprit but I will say the cadence of the grouse drumming is pretty much spot on with what we experienced. That being said I don't recall hearing anything - really just something we felt. Next time it happens I'll be on the look-out!
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Back in the 70s, 4 of us went camping in Canada. The third day one of the guys mentions the weird sound of the Grouse. Two of us were surprised it was a bird making that noise. The fourth said " You guys hear that too, I thought it was in my chest and I might be having a heart attack. When we stopped laughing, we said what a trooper, having a heart attack but didn't want to ruin the trip.
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The sound was most likely being made by an American Bittern. American Bittern produces a sound much like that described by the original poster, though it is most prominent during their spring mating season. It is an eerie and fascinating sound. I have heard them on Little Tupper in the vicinity of site 10 in May. Wetlands in that vicinity are their preferred habitat.
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I often heard the bittern when growing up as a kid next to the wetland flats farm country of the Black River. My father likened the unmistakable clunking sound to the sound made by someone in the distance pounding a fence stake in the ground with a sledge hammer.
This and the drumbeat of a grouse should also be very familiar to anyone who has spent any time in the wild."Now I see the secret of making the best person, it is to grow in the open air and to eat and sleep with the earth." -Walt Whitman
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I've only heard the bittern a few times to know what it was, but it's a really fun sound.
10 or 15 years ago we had a visit from a lady who was about 90 at the time and somewhat hard of hearing. During the day she would wear hearing aids, but at night she took them out. One morning at breakfast she asked if we had bears around here, because she thought she had heard a deep snuffling sound when heading for the bathroom in the farmhouse around 5 AM (in May). We had a grouse drumming a lot that year, and when she heard it with her hearing aids in she thought that was probably what she had heard early in the morning.
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Originally posted by chief900 View Post…Every so often you'd get a similar feeling to when your heart beats super-fast to the point you feel it in your head. Only it certainly wasn't that - it was something causing a reverberating sensation that would start slowly before becoming more rapid and then dying off, all in a matter of maybe 3-5 seconds.
https://youtu.be/MVfiIp3QGs4
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