After posting The Whisperer on the 22nd of October 2010 I have been going back through some of my sound files and blogposts and looking for any similarities.

The first part of March 2010 I recorded a lot of coyotes that were particularly vocal, I assume because of the mating season.  I posted on Facebook what I thought were some odd coyote vocalizations. I was contacted by five or six researchers who thought that I should take a closer look at this sound file as there was one segment that was very un-coyote like. I dubbed the sound clip the Lake Howl and included it a March 28th, 2010 article entitled That Strange Anomoly.  I was very reluctant to say much about it because of the many coyotes also vocalizing within the sound file.

A view of the hill behind our home where I recorded the “mumble” in March of  2010.

For a recorder I used the Sound Devices 722 with a Sennheiser MKH20 Omni-directional microphone. The microphone was placed on our patio where it was protected from the weather.

After the recording last week I am now wondering if it is not a somewhat similar scenario, in that you have a common animal (whether coyote howling as in March of 2010 or dogs barking as in October of 2010) mixed in with an unknown sound. If you look both at the sound clip using a sound editor and listen to the clip there is one very short sound segment that is highly unusual. I have recorded many coyotes and not ever seen or heard this particular sound.

The following sound file was recorded the 2nd of March 2010.  The coyotes were very close to my house and at first you hear a lone male calling, and then what sounds like a mumble (at the 24 sec mark and lasting for one second) and then the rest of the coyote pack howling.

A 2 minute segment with the mumble at the 24 second mark.

Click here to listen to sound clip:  Mumble 1   35 second  sound clip

Waveform View

Spectral View

A 5 second segment of just the mumble.

Click here to listen to sound clip: Mumble  5 second sound clip

Waveform View

Spectral View

I do not know what the source for the “mumble” is but my suspicion is that I may have recorded the same unknown intruder that I later recorded and labelled The Whisperer in October of 2010.