Endurance.Net Ridecamp Archives

One thing about mountain lions is that they can make the strangest sounds.  It was about this time of year and I was returning home at dusk in suburban Oklahoma.  I'd walked around the car to get my children out when I heard what I thought was a woman calling for her dog across the road.  I couldn't see anything, but could hear the 'woman' getting closer.  Across the road were trees and grasses, but I knew by where the sound was that I should have been able to see a human walking through there making that much noise.  All of a sudden, an animal the size of a large dog (with a head, tail and movement all wrong for a dog) popped out of the grasses, crossed the road coming in my direction and began crossing the pasture just about 50 yards south of me.  I realized this animal was making the strange sound - it wasn't a woman calling her dog at all.  The sound it was making sounded exactly like a woman yelling the drawn-out word 'ot' (if that can be called a word).  I knew it was a cat and that it had a long tail, but for the longest time didn't want to believe what I suspected.  Especially when I heard ANOTHER one making the exact same sound in the distance - they were obviously calling to eachother.

 

I later visited a sanctuary that had a few mountain lions and the keepers confirmed that I had seen and heard a pair of mountain lions.  Just gives me the heebie jeebies.