Boundary Waters Quetico Forum :: Listening Point - General Discussion :: Things that go bump in the night
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alpinebrule |
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butthead |
Nite noises are a big reason I camp so much. Some of my favorite sounds are heard in winter camps, man does sound carry on a cold clear nite. Insects buzz, owls hoot, canines howl. One I had to investigate was the light and regular scraping of a wood wasp larva. butthead |
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shoreviewswede |
Hear SOMETHING most nights, but those sounds are great. |
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proepro |
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SourisMan |
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mjmkjun |
awbrown: "I was the only person camping in a Forest Service campground in the UP one earlier May weekend. About 1 a.m I woke up for some reason and I laid there listening to the gentle lapping of the waves on the beach. Isn't it nice to know there's competition out there, in the darkness, just to WATCH YOU! |
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Quacker1 |
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Selfsuffi |
airmorse: "How about when you can't hear anything when absolutely nothing is making a sound. There have been a few nights like that for me. Your sitting there then you realize that you should be hearing something...anything, but not a peep." I know what you mean on this one. I always assume it means a predator is close.....I'll take a noise I can hear anytime over the dead silence of a forest gone quiet. |
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poxy |
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TomT |
I thought whatever it was was gone but about 2 minutes later the swimming/loud breathing resumes. I listen closely and it has to be a moose by the sound of the breathing. Again, it goes quiet! Two minutes go by and there it is again! This cycle repeats a couple more times before I hear the loud splashing by the shore and something large walking away in the forest. I came to learn later that Moose will dive for vegetation and can hold their breath quite a long time. This had to be it. I was glad I set up my hammock close to the shore. It was probably a once in a lifetime experience for me. |
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TomT |
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riverrunner |
Makes life interisting |
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UncleBuck |
I'm curious what others have heard in the night outside their tent in the deep, dark woods. A couple years ago I spent my first night in the BWCA at a site on Ottertrack just before the Knife portage. After a very long day's paddle and after my severe leg cramps subsided and I stopped the loud grunt/screaming I settled down and tried to go to sleep. I must have laid their for an hour wondering when the zoo animals were going to rip through the tent and start eating me. Eventually I didn't care if they did because I was too tired. What struck me the most were the sounds of the things scurrying through the forest and what I expect where owls trying to eat them. In the morning I found a squashed mouse near my trip-mate's tent. He figures I stepped on it sometime in the night. I'm pretty sure something large and feathery was eating it. Last year at a site on Cherry, I could swear that at some point in the very, very early morning I could hear some alarm going off. At the time I kind of thought that it might be a dream I was having but I'm not so sure. It was a kind of warble and it felt like it was coming from another lake over the bluffs. It eventually stopped and I forgot about it until the next day. I sure hope it wasn't someone in trouble. I suppose it could have been a bear alarm though. Speaking of bears, my trip-mate swears that he heard something very large fall into the water from our site. He's convinced that it was a bear diving or falling in. I suppose it could have been a rock from the bluffs but I don't know. I think a small animal would have slipped into the water. I guess we'll never know but he figures that giant bear was nosing around the tents and fire grate before he got fed up and swam away. Fun to think about. |
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mirth |
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SevenofNine |
The other was an adult female during the rutting season on Polly. That was scary as a buddy and his wife staying on the island site mentioned that she was chased by two bull moose through our camp when we did a day trip to the pictographs. That same night she was grazing just outside our tents and pulling up grass growing in the tent pad areas. Fun :-) |
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GearJunkie |
When it stood with nose aimed at my tent to where I could hear it had huge lungs, then I got nervous... but then decided to put my earbuds back in and go to sleep. |
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GraniteCliffs |
Or it could have been the Makers Mark, I suppose. |
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airmorse |
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giddyup |
Toward the end of the trip, at dawn, I got to hear and see a playful Pine Martin running back and forth across the hollow sound of the forest duff before I got out of tent in the morning. He (or she) sounded like a little horse galloping in and out through camp. It was a pretty neat way to start the day. |
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Michwall2 |
My son and I were in our tent playing cribbage before bed on Beth Lake. We heard a growling sound outside the tent. We kept playing cards. The growling got louder. My son said it was the De Haviland float plane. We kept playing cards. The growling got louder. It was soon clear we had a bear in camp. We kept playing. (We had our headlamps on.) . The bear wandered around the outside of the camp. We kept playing. The bear wandered up the hill toward the latrine. We kept playing. The bear ran back down the hill (in what I now suspect was a bluff charge!) toward the camp. He continued the growling and roaming just outside the campsite. The growling got softer. We kept playing. Pretty soon the was no more growling and we heard a splash in the lake by the portage headed to Alton Lake. All fell quiet and we went to sleep. We were having supper in a campsite in Sawbill Lake and a bass caught earlier in the day figured prominently. A pine martin presented itself as if expecting a portion of the fish. He was pretty insistent. We had to get loud and large to chase him away. He left pretty grumpily. He circled just outside the light of the fire in the brush for a few minutes. Soon there was a commotion in the brush and a rabbit scurried into the firelight of the campsite and then ran back into the brush. Pretty soon we heard more commotion and noises of a rabbit in distress. Silence fell on the campsite again. My dad spent a night on Sawbill Lake when the loons were particularly vocal wondering if he would ever get to sleep. |
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Blatz |
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mooseplums |
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mastertangler |
I have 2 theories......either it was totally freaked out by ny prescence or it stuck its nose into a big Wolf Spiders nest. Doris (I had named the big spider who stood guard over her brood and was fearless) was gone when it got light. I bet a bite on a tender nose would be exceedingly painful. I had quickly grabbed my headlamp eager to see what could make such a noise but I was unable to get a glimpse. Another animal which can make a surprisingly amount of noise around camp at night is a big snowshoe rabbit. They jump around playfully and sound much bigger than they are. |
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missmolly |
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ozarkpaddler |
UncleBuck: " Betcha it was a beaver? The sound they make when they hit that tail on the water and dive sounds just like a huge animal diving into the water. It's fooled me at night too. Something sniffling on the other side of the tent? I'm very fortunate to have never heard that. Hearing wolves at night is eerie to me, especially when they're close. Have heard them a few times, but the closest was on Ester Lake, they were VERY close. |
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dicecupmaker |
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awbrown |
All of a sudden a "dog" fight broke out right behind my tent. Growling, biting, rolling on the ground went on for about 30 seconds. I got my flash lite and headed out of the tent to see what type of creatures were fighting, but by the time I could get out, everybody was gone. Scared the you know what out of me, but I never figured out what sort of canine creatures it was. I suspect coyote's, but there were wolves in the area as well. |
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johndku |
mastertangler: I had a huge hare/rabbit in camp at Red Rock Lake in 2016. It would "thump, thump, thump" it's back legs over and over again, sounded like somebody playing the drums. I think we might have pitched a tent too close to it's den and it was ticked off at us. |
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plainspaddler |
butthead: "It's the small critters that make the noise. Big critters are very quiet. I have seen moose in camp several times at nite, never heard them. It is the small critters that are noisy! On our first trip to the BW we had a bear sniffing the tent during daylight. It was drizzling rain so we were reading in the tent (this was before I bought a CCS tarp) and we didn't know he was there until we heard his breathing! That night I didn't sleep very well. I heard every sound. Mice and frogs make an amazing amount of noise on tent nylon! Another time on Horseshoe (EP 47) we had a hare that would race around the campsite at night. I think he was nuts! The last night we were reading by headlamp and he was running around all over camp then he slammed into the tent right on my wife's side. Scared the you-know-what out of her and I! Probably the weirdest one was on Long Island Lake. Two different nights I heard a sound like a large stone being dropped into deep water but with no splash sound. It really freaked me out! I posted it to the messageboard here and we came to the conclusion in was beavers! Mike |
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moosedoggie |
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LindenTree3 |
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mastertangler |
But a Chewbacca, that on the other hand, has numerous photographic evidence including actual documentaries. Known for their exceedingly tall stature and strength, it may very well be a Chebacca vacationing on earth that many are seeing. |
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airmorse |
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Dooger |
johndku: "mastertangler: Grouse drumming? |
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treehorn |
The first night, I swear it was a fox or something pitter pattering around my camp - but honestly probably just a squirrel. But then I swear I heard it walk by my tent doing the rapid fire snif snif snif snif thing like a small dog would do. It's possible that was a dream though. One night something crawled out of the water nearby and did the "shake the water off" thing a dog does when it gets out of water. That was interesting, you could tell there was some mass to this critter. I assume an otter or a beaver. |
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ozarkpaddler |
treehorn: "Just got back from my first solo, and these sounds in the night were one of the more interesting parts of the trip. Maybe a Pine Marten too? Very "Fox like" except they can climb like a monkey too. I've had them a few times check out my campsite. And their growl....you would think they are much bigger than they are |
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Michwall2 |
LindenTree3: "My buddy and I were camping in Alaska last year when a bear sniffed his head through the tent. He socked it in the nose. It ran off crashing through the woods." Now that's nerve. Black or brown? I wonder if more bears would learn to stay away if they had such a painful, non-lethal encounter with humans before they found food and humans go together? |
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ozarkpaddler |
Quacker1: "My son and I had been in our tent for some time and I was resting my elbow against one the the tent walls. I was almost asleep when something came along and pushed on my elbow several times. I guess what ever it was had to check out the bump in the side of the tent. We thought it was pretty cool." You got more guts than I do, it would have freaked ME out! |
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eroom |
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LindenTree3 |
Michwall2: "LindenTree3: "My buddy and I were camping in Alaska last year when a bear sniffed his head through the tent. He socked it in the nose. It ran off crashing through the woods." Pretty sure it was a black bear. |
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ozarkpaddler |
eroom: "Coming out of EP 16 Sunday, July 1, around 10:30pm, something was throwing rocks in my direction. Very creepy." Well, here you go ;) Rock Throwing |
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CityFisher74 |
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Quacker1 |
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