A bobcat in Brookline?
By adamg - 2/4/10 - 1:59 am
Brookline Mama swears that's what she saw and heard outside around 10 p.m. on Wednesday:
... Suddenly there is a racket in the street. A small dog barking very, very loudly? Surely that's not a dog? I go outside with my flashlight. It's 10F and I'm wearing a skirt and a thin sweater and my breath is almost obscuring my vision, but the first new yowl I hear sets my whole body on fire. Hair-raising. Repelling, but oh so magnetic too ...
Comments
Fisher?
By Suldog - 2/4/10 - 9:43 am
Left this as a comment over there.
It might have been a bobcat. It's also possible that what you heard was a fisher. They make a sound similar to that. Here's a link about that animal:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fisher_%28animal%29
I had one up a tree in my front yard in Watertown once. I never want to again! The sound it made was ungodly; that's what drew me outside. I shined a flashlight up into the tree where the sound was coming from and caught sight of a reflection from the eyes, but that's about all. The reflection was sort of golden, as they reflect light similarly to a cat's eyes. They will prey on housecats, if hungry enough.
Anyway, a possibility.
Suldog
http://jimsuldog.blogspot.com
i've got fisher cats out by my place...
By bandit - 2/4/10 - 9:55 am
...the sound they make it truly ungodly. sort of like a small baby getting murdered. it's a high pitched scream that can easily wake me up at night. the animals will come right up the house and are somewhat fearless. and yes, it could be the tasty cats we have inside. they are pretty easy to identify when you see them outside because they run and sort of undulate like giant weasels.
those animals are beautiful, but totally freak me out in the middle of the night when i hear them scream.
Giant weasels
By Allstonian - 2/4/10 - 10:17 am
They undulate like giant weasels (excellent description!) because they *are* giant weasels. (Although the family Mustelidae also includes badgers and wolverines, and it looks like current theories of classification have fishers and martens more closely related to those critters than to actual weasels.)