What bird screams at night?

A long, harsh, rasping scream at night, often from something flying over a field or marsh, is most likely a Barn Owl, the owl that does not hoot. A burst of screams, cackles and hoots from wet woods is a pair of Barred Owls, loudest from late winter into spring. In Florida, a loud, rattling wail repeated from a marsh or lake shore after dark is a Limpkin. If it sounded exactly like a woman screaming in the yard, consider a red fox too.

Listen: the Barn Owl

If the sound was one drawn-out shriek, harsh rather than musical, start here. Audubon's list of Barn Owl sounds is short: hissing notes, screams, guttural grunts and bill snapping, plus rapid clicks from the young that resemble a grackle. No hoot appears on it. The Nature Conservancy's description of the scream is that it belongs in a cheap horror film, and a Barn Owl disturbed at its nest adds an unsettling hiss.

The scream often moves. Barn Owls hunt at night and seldom by day, and they are frequently heard calling while flying high over farmland or marshes, so the sound may pass over the house and fade. They live in open or semi-open lowland country: farms, groves, barns, small towns and cliffs. It is one of the most widespread land birds in the world, found on six continents, and while some stay through the winter near the northern edge of the range, others, young birds especially, move far south in fall.

Barred Owls: screams with the hoots attached

A Barred Owl is a loud, showy vocalist, and when a pair or a family gets going, the familiar hoots break down into cackles, caws and gurgles. Observers have described the result as cat-like screams, sudden demonic laughter and long outbursts of cackling. Females and young birds also beg with high, scratchy skreeech notes, so a single raspy screech from a dark tree can be an owl asking to be fed.

These owls call most between 6 pm and 6 am and least in mid-afternoon. They are noisy in most seasons, with the peak running from late January in Florida to early April in Canada, and the calls can carry well over half a mile. Look for them in bottomland hardwood forest, swampy ground and woods along rivers, though suburban neighborhoods suit them too. They live throughout the eastern United States, west across Texas as far as Cisco and Burnet, and since 1976 in northern California.

The Limpkin: Florida's night wailer

The Limpkin is a marsh bird that hunts by wading in shallow water, and Audubon calls its voice a loud, wailing krrr-eeeow, with piercing wails often heard at dawn or at night. The Nature Conservancy notes that the male's repeated, high-pitched wail sounds remarkably human, and that the female sometimes answers with a softer groan. In the United States it lives in Florida and southern Georgia, in freshwater marshes, along the shores of ponds and lakes, and in wooded swamps along rivers and near springs. It eats mostly large apple snails and may forage at night, especially when the moon is bright. Strays have lately wandered farther north, following the spread of invasive snails.

When it is not a bird

Sometimes the screamer has fur. The Nature Conservancy tells of a neighbor asking whether someone could hear a woman screaming, and the answer was a vixen, a female red fox; Maryland's Department of Natural Resources regularly reassures residents that the night screams they report are foxes, not people in trouble. The same article lists an alarmed raccoon's shriek, compared to a high-pitched pig squeal, and the high, repeating night scream of a peacock in breeding season, if a neighbor keeps peafowl.

How to tell which one you heard

• Where it came from. Open fields, barns or overhead: Barn Owl. Wet woods, a river bottom or big trees in an older neighborhood: Barred Owl. A Florida marsh, lake shore or spring run: Limpkin. Something that sounded exactly like a person: consider a fox.
• What came with it. Hoots before or after the screams mean Barred Owls. A wail repeated again and again points to a Limpkin. A single harsh shriek with nothing else is the Barn Owl's signature.
• Whether it moved. A scream that passes overhead and fades fits a Barn Owl, which often calls on the wing over fields and marshes.
• The time of year. Barred Owls are noisy in most seasons, but their calling peaks from late January into early spring.

If it calls again, a short recording will settle more than any description. Warble can listen for the owls and the Limpkin on this page; it identifies birds only, so a fox or a raccoon will leave it guessing.

Questions people ask

Warble is a game, not a field guide. Facts about birds on this page come from the sources above.