The sounds they make might have something to do with various situations. They do make a higher pitched scream of longer duration somewhat like a woman opera singer, but I’ve only heard that one in sound files—not in person. In person, I’ve only heard the quick, lower pitched, hoarse sounding screeches, when they were prowling around in nearby fields at night.
By the way, I wrote “crow” earlier. Folks around here correct me with the name, raven, for those bigger birds. What I’ve heard from mountain lions was much quicker, coarse sounding, forced sounding (like they exhaled a lot to make the sound) and more high pitched than a raven but not like a woman opera singer issuing a long, high note.
Could be that I’m lacking good comparisons for a description, too. Maybe a recording would help, and I’ll try to remember that the next time the big cats come around.
We have them come through the ranch from time to time, got one of them about 10 years ago. Seen one last summer but I didn’t have enough time to get a shot off. He was a yearling male about 75 to 80 lbs. The Aoudad sheep have moved back on to the ranch so I suspect we’ll be seeing more. Aoudads like the mountains and so do the big cat’s. Heard one scream one night when the wife and I were fishing one of the big ponds, my first reponse was that’s a female and she’s in heat. Anybody thats ever had a female house cat go into heat knows what I’m taking about. Our cats don’t get as big as the northern cat’s, a big male might go 135 to 150 lbs. Didn’t weigh the one I shot but I guessed him at about 100 lbs.
Keep in touch. I find this to be a fascinating subject.