Raccoon noises?

[David Ames]

An hour before sunrise last week, I went out for the early bus and I
heard noises from across the street. One noise was like a "yip, yip,
yip" and the other was like "ooo, ooo" in an undertone. Are tthese
typical of noises that a raccoon makes?

David Ames

[James Elkinton]

Not sure about the yip, almost sounds like a canine... perhaps
fox? The other sound, if it's got a warble somewhat like a
rolled-R like you would use in Spanish, then it sounds like a
possible raccoon to me.

Walked past a pack of four of them a couple nights back, and you
could hear their chirrs two blocks down. Got my flashlight
ready, walked up, turned it on, and had four faces turned to,
eyes locked on to that intriguing shiny thing. After a few
moments, they descended, one steady, two a little faster, and one
miscalculated badly and fell rather clumsily about five feet.
All walked past me, wary of my presence but not particularly
alarmed... until I gave them a 'chirr' right back.

Oh, the look I got back from them! Was either "What the... he
speaks our language?! Funny dialect though...", or perhaps it
was on the order of four proper businessmen discussing the events
of the day, and their fifth associate comes in and without
warning greets them with a completely out-of-character 'Yo,
'sup?' or something entirely improper (and maybe unprintable in
polite text). Regardless, I didn't think a raccoon could make a
o.O face quite as quality as the lead one did. :)

Months ago, I surprised a raccoon who immediately dived into a
stormdrain, and as I walked past, I got a couple *very* unamused
growls. If I hadn't seen the source of the growl dive in there,
that would have been entirely unsettling. I wish I could have
recorded it.

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