Yowiehunters Forum

Just thought I'd make a comparison video up of Wild Dog & Dingo Howls Compared to The Yowie Howls we recorded at Marramarra last weekend. The first two you
can tell are canine howls, But the one we recorded never sounded like a canine howl to us. Please post you views no matter if you agree or not all opinions are welcome as always. https://youtu.be/EMr71Gfmi5g

+1 Dog

Could be the Hairy Folk... but comparing dog/dingo howls is like comparing different singers under different moods.
One dingo's howl can sound different to another, and they vary depending on 'what they're saying'.

I've heard dingo howls that sound exactly like a human trying to howl like a dingo

But then perhaps I only THOUGHT I was hearing Dingos at the time.

I am not in anyway, shape or form an expert on animal calls, but I think you can hear a slight difference at the very beginning of the dog and dingo calls. You can hear a "arr" type sound on the dogs, I can't really pick that up on the other call if it is a yowie. Could also come down to my hearing and the sound quality of the yowie call.

Z

YowieDan,

While I'm no expert what you recorded don't sound like dog howls to me. My Mum through her years of showing dogs and owning them, and myself having to put up with them howling or hearing the neighborhood dogs howl in the distance. What you recorded does sound like that to me.

yowiedan wrote:Just thought I'd make a comparison video up of Wild Dog & Dingo Howls Compared to The Yowie Howls we recorded at Marramarra last weekend. The first two you
can tell are canine howls, But the one we recorded never sounded like a canine howl to us. Please post you views no matter if you agree or not all opinions are welcome as always. https://youtu.be/EMr71Gfmi5g

I’m a bit of a fence sitter on this one; could be canine could be something larger. I’m listening for that deeper pitch
which may come from something with a larger chest cavity then a wild dog or dingo, after listening to comparisons
I would even say Dingo’s can be a bit more higher pitched when there howling then a dog.

I also take into account the bias in my own hearing, which is towards the higher pitch and what device I’m listening
to it on and what device it was recorded on.
In a previous post Wolf mentioned the length of the howl as an indication which is another factor in all this.

I suspect by my hearing, hand held digital recorders can’t produce a true bass sound. So going by that,
when I heard this howl I thought it had that deeper resonance that satisfied my ears that it may be a larger animal
rather then a canine. Might also be some wild cattle or a Moose loose in the upper Hawkesbury.

Apologies to the old hands on here that have already discussed the chest cavity thing, I know in previous posts
foot-falls determining stride and weight have been discussed but I was wondering how lung capacity is expressed;
psi, litre or something. Is an average whales lung capacity 500 litres, a bull 60 litres, a human 12 , a dog 8 or kitten .4 .


T.

Wolf wrote:Could be the Hairy Folk... but comparing dog/dingo howls is like comparing different singers under different moods.
One dingo's howl can sound different to another, and they vary depending on 'what they're saying'.

I've heard dingo howls that sound exactly like a human trying to howl like a dingo

But then perhaps I only THOUGHT I was hearing Dingos at the time.

Good points Wolf, but I'm stuck on this tonal range thing. I understand the 'different singers' and 'what their saying'
reference but is it pitched high or low.

I suppose we can say listen is subjective; meaning as well as wave length.

T.

Just to add. The Howl sounded so loud when we first heard it. We all said that is no dog. I think we have all heard dog howls and this howl sounded like it came from something bigger than a dog. The sound of the howl we recorded had a sustained pitch to it, it never wavered at all. If you hear the wild dog howl it has a different pitch to it at the end of the howl , it isn't much but its there. I have more howls recorded and will post another soon

The yowie "moan/scream" (I've heard researchers call bigfoot's vocalisations that) is definitely different to the dog/dingo howls/yelps. More ape/human like with a definite sustained pitch only humanesque vocal chords can reproduce.

deadpool wrote:The yowie "moan/scream" (I've heard researchers call bigfoot's vocalisations that) is definitely different to the dog/dingo howls/yelps. More ape/human like with a definite sustained pitch only humanesque vocal chords can reproduce.

According to some US 'researcher' I was recently listening to, Sasquatch may have three vocal cords compared to our two...

... which (combined with their enormous lung capacity) could account for the reported infrasound (or 'zapping' witnesses experience sometimes).

Just as a disclaimer to my point about length of the howl indicative of said lung capacity... it is possible the howl went on for much longer, just at a frequency beyond our hearing/recording.

Have you looked at the sound in a good audio program like Adobe Soundbooth? You may have recorded some infrasound.

Wolf wrote:

deadpool wrote:The yowie "moan/scream" (I've heard researchers call bigfoot's vocalisations that) is definitely different to the dog/dingo howls/yelps. More ape/human like with a definite sustained pitch only humanesque vocal chords can reproduce.

According to some US 'researcher' I was recently listening to, Sasquatch may have three vocal cords compared to our two...

... which (combined with their enormous lung capacity) could account for the reported infrasound (or 'zapping' witnesses experience sometimes).

Just as a disclaimer to my point about length of the howl indicative of said lung capacity... it is possible the howl went on for much longer, just at a frequency beyond our hearing/recording.

Have you looked at the sound in a good audio program like Adobe Soundbooth? You may have recorded some infrasound.

Wolf thanks for your very informative post I will definitely look into it. The program Adobe Soundbooth is it a free version. I've been Using Wavepad.

yowiedan wrote:

Wolf wrote:

deadpool wrote:The yowie "moan/scream" (I've heard researchers call bigfoot's vocalisations that) is definitely different to the dog/dingo howls/yelps. More ape/human like with a definite sustained pitch only humanesque vocal chords can reproduce.

According to some US 'researcher' I was recently listening to, Sasquatch may have three vocal cords compared to our two...

... which (combined with their enormous lung capacity) could account for the reported infrasound (or 'zapping' witnesses experience sometimes).

Just as a disclaimer to my point about length of the howl indicative of said lung capacity... it is possible the howl went on for much longer, just at a frequency beyond our hearing/recording.

Have you looked at the sound in a good audio program like Adobe Soundbooth? You may have recorded some infrasound.

Wolf thanks for your very informative post I will definitely look into it. The program Adobe Soundbooth is it a free version. I've been Using Wavepad.

Sorry, doubt Soundbooth is free. You may be able to get a trial version. I have it with my Adobe Creative Suite (I was making a TV show) and use it to clean up sound from clips I am editing in Premiere Pro. You can see the 'dirty' sound and get rid of it so I am assuming you could also see any infrasound waves, but I suppose it would depend on your mic quality.

Rusty might know?

I've already sent the recordings to Rusty. I use a Digital Sony Notetaker

I reckon the parabolic dish recordings are the weirder ones. It has that loopy eeriness about it. I will have to give the group that heard it the benefit of the doubt. Im sure theyve heard dingoes and wild dogs before and they say it was different and very loud.

As for the duration of the howl, yowies can howl/ roar for a lot longer than these recordings but im sure theres no set duration and really, they are very weird and who knows why its howling and doing?

Sometimes when i yawn loudly or hear someone yawn loudly i think how much it sounds like a yowie. Like a human gone off the deep end or a deaf person howling like a dog and cant hear his own voice. I know that sounds terrible but no offence meant. Deafness is hereditary in my family so i wouldnt make light of it.

I've made a video below of 3 separate dingoes that I recorded in 3 separate locations , plus Daniels recording plus a screen shot of the actual howl .

The interesting thing about Daniels recording is that it has 3 octaves whereas the others do not . This may be because of the lower frequency howl .

Interesting...

... I noticed there seems to be a brief spurt of Infrasound at 4 seconds in.

Do you get much infrasound in your recordings Rusty?

Wasn't looking for infrasound Wolf although I can see in the picture there is some as you say which is interesting in itself , I'll check the other recordings .

Is there a way with whatever program you use to increase the Hertz?
In other words... to isolate and then 'hear' the infrasound bits?

Rusty2 wrote:I've made a video below of 3 separate dingoes that I recorded in 3 separate locations , plus Daniels recording plus a screen shot of the actual howl .

The interesting thing about Daniels recording is that it has 3 octaves whereas the others do not . This may be because of the lower frequency howl .

Rusty i will be interested in your findings on these howls i recorded. Thanks for taking the time to look into it for me.

Rusty could you explain about the octaves found in the recording please.

yowiedan wrote:Rusty could you explain about the octaves found in the recording please.

Hi Dan,

I disagree with Rusty a little and say it shows only two octaves, but as always stand ready to be corrected, I am no expert.
Rusty used the term octave but I am more used to using that in terms of musical notes. For analysis I am more familiar with using the term Harmonics but they are interrelated terms.

The graph he has shown has two representations.
1. the small bit at the top in blue shows amplitude versus time and gives an indication of signal strength (loudness).
2. The main image is a spectrogram or spectrograph that shows the different frequencies contained in the sound versus time.

The spectrograph allows you to see what proportion of low and high frequencies you have and how loud they are, all in one image.
The intensity or loudness of the sound is shown in a spectrogram by colour changes. The bar at the right hand side shows the colour variation from -105dB (no sound) which is black, increasing through shades of orange, yellow and up to white for the loudest sounds above 0dB.

So in the image the loudest sounds are yellow/white.

The lines represent harmonics, with the lowest in frequency called the fundamental frequency. This will usually also be the loudest and is also called the 1st Harmonic.
The next line above that will be the 2nd Harmonic and the next highest will be the 3rd Harmonic.

Harmonics used here is in the context of the physics of sound and I won't go into it in detail but a harmonic is

"a wave with a frequency that is a positive integer multiple of the frequency of the original wave." (Wikipedia)

So if the fundamental frequency is (f), the frequency of the second harmonic will be 2 x (f) and this 2nd harmonic is said to be one Octave above the fundamental frequency.
In the first sound on the left in the image, we can also see the 3rd Harmonic, which would be 3 x (f) and is 2 Octaves above the fundamental frequency.

Hope this helps a bit and is not too confusing.

Trev

TrevorPeters wrote:

yowiedan wrote:Rusty could you explain about the octaves found in the recording please.

Hi Dan,

I disagree with Rusty a little and say it shows only two octaves, but as always stand ready to be corrected, I am no expert.
Rusty used the term octave but I am more used to using that in terms of musical notes. For analysis I am more familiar with using the term Harmonics but they are interrelated terms.

The graph he has shown has two representations.
1. the small bit at the top in blue shows amplitude versus time and gives an indication of signal strength (loudness).
2. The main image is a spectrogram or spectrograph that shows the different frequencies contained in the sound versus time.

The spectrograph allows you to see what proportion of low and high frequencies you have and how loud they are, all in one image.
The intensity or loudness of the sound is shown in a spectrogram by colour changes. The bar at the right hand side shows the colour variation from -105dB (no sound) which is black, increasing through shades of orange, yellow and up to white for the loudest sounds above 0dB.

So in the image the loudest sounds are yellow/white.

The lines represent harmonics, with the lowest in frequency called the fundamental frequency. This will usually also be the loudest and is also called the 1st Harmonic.
The next line above that will be the 2nd Harmonic and the next highest will be the 3rd Harmonic.

Harmonics used here is in the context of the physics of sound and I won't go into it in detail but a harmonic is

"a wave with a frequency that is a positive integer multiple of the frequency of the original wave." (Wikipedia)

So if the fundamental frequency is (f), the frequency of the second harmonic will be 2 x (f) and this 2nd harmonic is said to be one Octave above the fundamental frequency.
In the first sound on the left in the image, we can also see the 3rd Harmonic, which would be 3 x (f) and is 2 Octaves above the fundamental frequency.

Hope this helps a bit and is not too confusing.

Trev

Trevor, basically what would be good is to find out for sure that these howls i have recorded are no way related to a canine howl. At the time we heard it, It sounded so loud and we said straight away that's no dog. We all have heard dogs howl and all of us that were there are very sure it was something else. Just hoping some program like Rusty is using can clear this up and resolve it to a positive conclusion.

Sorry for the late reply .

Wolf , Yep , video below . What your hearing in the video is 20 hertz and below . Because it's been enhanced too much , it's actually a distortion of the truth , you can't hear infrasound .

The picture below is Daniels original recording showing that any infrasound isn't isolated to just the vocalisation but sporadic . We may be introducing infrasound to the audio when enhancing .

Trevor is right , I meant harmonics , sorry ! Picture below of rx tool to remove unwanted harmonics .

Daniel , I'm not sure if we can ever say for sure in any technical fashion that the call you recorded is a yowie , we're all in the same boat mate , all we can show is that it is different in two ways to your average dingo howl .
1. It is lower in frequency than your average dingo call .
2. It has a different audio signature to your average dingo .
More time spent on analysis and comparison may result in new information but the analysis of dingo howls is another avenue that may or may not lead anywhere . The only way to find out is to start studying .

I was with Yowie Dan and I recorded the same howls with my parabolic dish and SONY digital sound recorder. The first howl was really loud, in fact we were able to hear all of the the howls without the aid of the parabolic dish and headphones. Yowie Dan and I had the same exact reaction to the howls, we both knew almost immediately that it wasn't a wild dog or a dingo, we were at this location as a follow up to a lot of recent (possible Yowie) activity. The reactions of the other people at the same location was one of utter fear and terror, they had their torches on and were stoking the fires to help ward off whatever was making the howls.

The following morning on the way out of the area I was cutting for sign along the track and we found a number of large muddy wet footprints on the track and in the grass adjacent to the track. The muddy footprints weren't there the day before when we came into the area and no one had been along this track before us. The muddy footprints were also in the exact location and direction of where the howls came from the night before.

In all the years of field research, living in the bush and growing up with dogs, I have never heard this type of howl before, it was a bit like a siren call, it was really spooky to say the least. While living in the outback and the bush I have heard wild dogs and dingo's howl on many occasions especially after they have made a kill, this call was quite different, it didn't have the same inflections or variations as those made by a wild dog or a dingo. These howls were very consistant, they were the same howl with almost the exact same frequency and duration repeated over and over again after a pause or delay as if it was waiting for some kind of response to the howl.

I'm looking forward to the results of the further analysis that is being done on these howls.

Aussie Bushman

AussieBushman wrote:I was with Yowie Dan and I recorded the same howls with my parabolic dish and SONY digital sound recorder

Do you have the recording Aussie Bushman ?

I suppose I should have asked , can you hear any footsteps on your recording and did you take any photos of the footprints ?

AussieBushman wrote:I was with Yowie Dan and I recorded the same howls with my parabolic dish and SONY digital sound recorder. The first howl was really loud, in fact we were able to hear all of the the howls without the aid of the parabolic dish and headphones. Yowie Dan and I had the same exact reaction to the howls, we both knew almost immediately that it wasn't a wild dog or a dingo, we were at this location as a follow up to a lot of recent (possible Yowie) activity. The reactions of the other people at the same location was one of utter fear and terror, they had their torches on and were stoking the fires to help ward off whatever was making the howls.

The following morning on the way out of the area I was cutting for sign along the track and we found a number of large muddy wet footprints on the track and in the grass adjacent to the track. The muddy footprints weren't there the day before when we came into the area and no one had been along this track before us. The muddy footprints were also in the exact location and direction of where the howls came from the night before.

In all the years of field research, living in the bush and growing up with dogs, I have never heard this type of howl before, it was a bit like a siren call, it was really spooky to say the least. While living in the outback and the bush I have heard wild dogs and dingo's howl on many occasions especially after they have made a kill, this call was quite different, it didn't have the same inflections or variations as those made by a wild dog or a dingo. These howls were very consistant, they were the same howl with almost the exact same frequency and duration repeated over and over again after a pause or delay as if it was waiting for some kind of response to the howl.

I'm looking forward to the results of the further analysis that is being done on these howls.

Aussie Bushman

Would love to see some pictures of the tracks if you have them?
Was there a clear trackline? Were the prints 'inline' or just out of line, like humans walk?
Could you detect stride length and general size of the tracks?
Thanks.

Here is a link of a video i made of it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l40318OqJJg.

Didn't measure any kinda stride pattern etc, Was a bit exhausted due to lack of sleep.

That's the problem with a lot of areas in Australia.
It is hard to get a nice defined trackway in the dirt or snow like they often see in the US/Canada.

I can understand why you didn't bother trying to measure that one.

In regards to developing some sort of audio signature that can be used to tell the difference between a dog/dingo howl and a Yowie, what you are asking is difficult.
I have read where this is being developed, primarily in the context of security systems, but it is a bit cutting edge, not freely available and ridiculously expensive. It involves a lot better equipment than most people have access to, much better recording gear, not to mention a bigger brain than I have.

Sorry mate. Maybe in ten years the technology might be available everywhere but it is beyond me right now.

Im inclined to go with Aussie Bushman and Dans account of hearing it live. Its much different hearing something live than in an audio recording.

The loudness for instance and feel of the raw howl up close is not something someone would confuse with a dingo or wild dog.

If an experienced group that have heard dingo and wild dog howls many times before say its wasnt then its probably what they say it is...yowie.

Of course i understand thats not enough for everyone else and fair enough so but if we all had this advanced audio tech that can tell the difference and gigapixel cameras etc then we would have had our answers long ago. Like Trevor says,give it ten years or so , its only a matter of time.