July 1: Fox cries

I've been watching episodes of the British mystery show Jonathan Creek, and I've noticed an overused sound effect: every time a character is outside at night anywhere vaguely rural or suburban, there will be a short, eerie scream. It sounds almost like a woman in the distance, but it's slightly off. I assumed it was supposed to be an animal, but I didn't know which.

I've been hearing the same sort of sound in my neighborhood in the past few months. I didn't make the connection with the television program sound effect; I just wondered if someone across the hollow had a very loud puppy with abandonment issues... only in the evening.

My encounter with the foxes last night must have made my mental bell ting, so I went and looked up audio of fox calls. That was it! It's red foxes I've been hearing, and foxes that are the ubiquitous "eerie nighttime animal call" in Jonathan Creek.

Interesting that in all my years living at the farm, a much more rural area, I never saw or heard a fox. I wonder if the coyotes and roaming farm dogs make the area unsuitable for foxes. Or if, with food and cover so much more abundant there, they are just less likely to come in contact with humans.