Nocturnal pack hunting animal that hoots like wind chimes - Massachusetts
I have a question about something that happened on the conservation land just behind my house 3 or 4 years back, not far north of Boston. For a couple of weeks, I occasionally heard some creature in the woods at night that had a call that sounded just like wind chimes. Then one night a pack of them assembled, chiming back and forth at each other in a manner consistent with baying, and brought down a screaming animal not far behind my neighbor's house, that stopped screaming quite abruptly. The prey sounded about the size of a cat or a raccoon. The wind chime hooters, I think were likely also a smallish animal. They seem to have moved on within a month or so. Does anyone know what these are? I've never been able to find any references for them. Thank you!
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1 answer
I have no idea what "sounded like wind chimes" is supposed to mean. No animal that I know of makes a metallic clinking sound. The closest would be several frogs, but that doesn't fit at all with everything else you said.
Ignoring the useless description of the sound, everything else points to coyotes. It would be helpful to be more specific than "not far north of Boston" so we can at least know the nature of the general surroundings (houses and pavement, open field, a large wooded area, etc), but coyotes are now all over New England, even in some urban areas.
Coyotes don't exactly congregate in "packs" like wolves do, more like family groups. Several of them together is not unusual at all. The screaming animal you mention was probably a neighborhood cat. Cats usually scream loudly as a last resort, and coyotes are known to prey on house cats sometimes.
It is also consistant with coyotes that they stayed around for a month or so, then moved on, particularly if this was not late winter when they have pups in a den.
I live in Groton MA with woods all around the house. We have a group of coyotes in the general area, and twice now their den has been on our property. Mostly we hear them, especially when they howl back at trains honking at a nearby crossing. I only see a coyote on our property maybe 2-4 times a year, but pick them up routinely on a trail camera in the woods.
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