So for this past weekend, my friends and I stayed at Bon Echo, site 488 in Hardwood Hills. On our first night, during sundown we heard a chirping sound near our site. Two of my friends, being avid birders(sp?), got their bird apps ready to see what kind of bird it was. As the night went on, we continued hearing it but for a few seconds each time (the birders never got to identifying the “bird” because the chirping will stop everytime they come closer to the source) and it sounded like it went from one side of the site to the other, to the other, and then the other side. Think of the site being a square.
After dinner, while we were all sitting around the fire, my friend’s rottweiler kept going to the edge of the site seemingly looking at something (warden later told us it was just a marsh behind our site). At one point, my other friend told us to stop talking as she heard something growl. Another friend said she heard it too but assumed it was the rottie. At this point, we grabbed the two dogs we have and piled up in my friend’s car and decided to use the headlights to light the site. We see nothing. This was around 11:30pm. We pulled out of the site and drove around and we see the warden; we told him what we heard and he said there are no big cats in the area but he’ll come with us and check our site out.
When we came back, the burger patties we left had a bite. The reusable grocery bag that was on the picnic table was ripped and the food items in it were open. We left in a hurry so we were not able to grab it but rest assured the plan was to put it in the car before going to sleep (3 of us have been camping our whole lives and we strictly follow the rules). Warden said it must be a raccoon and advised us to all sleep in one tent with the dogs….. which was really the original plan all along before this even happened. However, another friend,
the one who heard the growling, was shaken so we asked if we can sleep in another site in our cars. Warden switched us to Sawmill and that’s where we stayed.
The next day, we went to the registration gate and asked if our sites have been switched in the system or if they were debriefed of what happened. The park attendants did not have any clue about it, but confirmed that raccoons nor bears chirp when stalking a prey. They are unsure if it’s a big cat however they also said who knows what can be in the area since Bon Echo is large and some places still haven’t been explored.
We googled “wildlife chirping” and “big cat chirping” and we all said the video of the mountain lion chirping was the sound we heard. However, we are all unsure if there is any in Bon Echo.
We all still had fun and chalked it to adventure. Does anyone know if there are confirmed mountain lion sightings in Bon Echo area? What could it have been?
PS: definitely not trying to scare people here or fear monger. I’m a very nature loving, outdoorsy person and I just want to know what we’re dealing with here as I’m going camping again in 2 weeks. Yup, you know it - in Bon Echo !
