"Conversations" Heard Around Sanibel Island

September and October are generally quiet months on Sanibel, and this season is no different.

At the moment, there is a constant breeze, possibly a souvenir from Hurricane Sandy, but without the ferocity or rain.  It's quite nice and certainly creates a sound spectacular.

But when the breezes calm down, with so few people and so few cars on Island, it is now possible to tune into the many other sounds on the Island. And if you listen intently, you can hear conversations taking place in every nook and cranny throughout Sanibel.

There's the who, who, who of the Great Horned Owl, the ack, ack, ack of the water birds (Egrets, Heron and Anhinga among them), the screech of the Osprey, the growl of the Alligator, the chirp of the frogs.

Just the other night, rental guests who rode their bike at dusk through Ding Darling remarked on a squeaking coming from the brush.  They were certain it was neither bird , amphibian or reptile.  And about the only mammals we could think of that make the noise that our guests described are bobcats, specifically mother cats calling for their young.  And so ruling out other possibilities, we are pretty certain the squeaks were from a momma cat and we envision a conversation of this sort:  " It's getting dark.  Time to stop playing and come eat dinner.  Come on now, I am not going to call you again."  Since the squeaks continued for quite a while, we had to assume she was not getting any response.  So finally the squeaks changed tone, and we are pretty certain this was the last comment before silence fell: "If you make me come looking for you, you are really in for it!"

With Halloween rapidly approaching, we are certain that any one who encounters the sounds of a fox on Island will have a hair raising experience.  Both the red and gray fox can make many vocalizations, and some of them will truly raise the dead.   The one that we know will catch the ear and attention on Halloween and any day is the yip, yip, yip of the red fox, concluding with a loud, one note "woman's scream" which has yet to be explained. So we will explain it as we see the situation.  Although the red fox is increasing in number, your chance of seeing one of these small secretive animals in the wild is extremely rare. It tends to hunt at dawn and dusk, and its keen sense of hearing keeps it at a safe distance from noise-making humans. The fox is a surprisingly fast animal, disappearing into the understory in a heartbeat. So our interpretation of the scream is purely a try to see me if you can taunt to those of us who hear the cry but can not find the source.

Have you heard any unusual conversations on Sanibel?  If so, we hope you will share them with us!