With All Hallows Eve rapidly approaching, I thought it was high time to explore the spookier side of birds. Specifically, spooky bird sounds. In my part of town there is a neighborhood famous for going all out on Halloween, with yards turned into commercial grade haunted houses. It occurred to me, during the several seconds of thought I give each bird report topic, that you might be able to host a truly terrifying haunted house with a soundtrack of only local bird sounds. Let’s give it a try!
First, as the victims, I mean patrons, approach, we use some of the more “on the nose” bird sounds to set the scene. First, a screaming Common Raven to set a Poe-esque mood.
Then, as you pass through the gate into a graveyard, the silence is shattered by a cry equal parts desolate and insane, perhaps from an escaped loon-atic - hopefully I don’t have to tell you the source.
Next, an army of staggering, brain-hungry corpses begin to emerge from the mist, as more zombie arms break upward through the dirt. The soundtrack? A nesting colony of cormorants.
Taking shelter in the nearby barn doesn’t provide much relief – almost immediately you hear this as a white specter descends from the rafters. That was a Barn Owl, appropriately enough.
Fleeing to the nearby house, you don’t even reach the door before a spaceship plunks down in front of you, and drooling, many tentacled aliens emerge from the ship sounding equal parts amused and ill, and a lot like an Atlantic Puffin at its burrow.
While they chuckle their puffiny chuckle, they raise their highly advanced space weapons and prepare to beam you into interplanetary servitude, at which point you hear this, courtesy of the specialized tail feathers of a displaying Wilson’s Snipe.
Narrowly escaping the aliens, you finally reach the house and enter the kitchen door. Unfortunately, you’ve interrupted a family of ghastly, faceless ghouls in the middle of chopping vegetables, or perhaps one of the neighbors, with a large butcher knife, and they don’t sound happy. In fact, they sound just as unhappy as Turkey Vulture chicks when disturbed at the nest.
You run upstairs and barricade yourself in a room, which, it turns out, is the inevitable nod to Alfred Hitchcock – there you see, and hear, Tippy Hedren being mercilessly pecked by a murder of crows.
You back out the nearest door, finding yourself in what looks like a child’s room. It’s of course inhabited by a creepy, haunted doll, with sounds courtesy of a nesting Leach’s Storm-Petrel.
So, there you have it – proof that you can have a truly terrifying haunted house experience using only the sounds of local birds. I didn’t even use them all – if you decide to do this in your neighborhood, make sure to throw in a Northern saw-whet Owl.
Even an Eastern Screech Owl can sound spooky, though I tend to find them cute.
If you end up doing one of these bird-themed haunted houses, let me know. And if I find out you’re charging money, I want you to know that my cut is 80 percent.
