Help ID odd sound in the woods

[Okanagan]

Heard an odd sound in the woods the other day, kind of a loud belch that echoed through the trees.  I think it was a black bear but am not sure.  It made the sound twice, closer the second time, and I think it was directing it at me.

Both times I made some noise cracking dry twigs as I headed to a calling stand. 

The first time, I accidentally cracked some dry twigs and within less than a minute the first belch sounded from a few hundred yards away.   

Two minutes later I was 75 yards farther and brushed through some alders that were bent down across the old road.    Immediately the belch/bawl came at me again, this time from around a bend only 100 yards up the road. 

It seemed to be an interrogatory sound, asking, “Who or what are you who is breaking brush over there?”   I considered calling back immediately with a hand call, but decided to set up my lion stand and see if the critter would come to that.  I heard a few faint sounds in the first five minutes, then nothing for the rest of the hour. 

We’ve heard black bears make some weird sounds in spring, likely mating sounds, though never this particular sound.  It is a bit early but IME males of every species start looking and calling well before the females get interested.  A beef cow could make this sound, as could elk, probably deer, probably coyote and I’m sure a bear or cougar could make it.

Guesses and educated guesses as to ID welcome. 

[HUNTINCOUPLE]

Squatch.

[NRA4LIFE]

I've heard whitetails make some very loud burping like noises, grunts I guess, in the fall only (one about 5 seconds before he died).  Never any other part of the year though.  I have also heard bears make a groaning type sound.  I doubt there are any hippos or alligators around.

[CasterlyRock]

I've heard that porcupines make a lot of human like sounds, haven't heard or seen any around but several neighbors say they are everywhere this year.

[huntnnw]

any moose around?

[Cylvertip]

Wasn't a sparrow hawk, was it?  They make a sound similar to belching on their dives.

[Encore 280]

BIGFOOT

[CP]

Elk barking?

[Okanagan]

Elk barking?

It was considerably different from any elk bark I've heard, and I don't think there are any elk in the area where I was.  Possible but very unlikely and I don't think it was elk.  Never have seen an elk nor elk track in that drainage.

Was not the swoop of a hawk or bird, though not a bad guess from someone who only had my verbal description. Quite different.  Made by vocal cords. 

I hadn't even considered moose, but (other than a steer bawl) the sound is closest to a bull moose doing that brief, loud grunt/bark challenge they do.  Northern Olympic Peninsula, moose extremely unlikely, almost equally unlikely to be a cow brute.

My first guess would be cougar, if my calling sounds had started.  But this was either random or more likely, a response to the brush crackling sounds I was making.   That context makes me think it was an amorous bear looking for a mate.  Steve Rainshadow knows more about cougar sounds.  Do they query the sound of something moving in the woods near them?  I heard a large footed cougar make a rapidly repeating cha-cha-cha sound in response to cougar vocals on a calling stand one time.  That one sounded like a baritone chipmunk and each of the "cha" bits was a bark somewhat like what I heard the other day. 

Curious here but will likely never know for sure what made the sound.

[pianoman9701]

I drew number 74 of the 75 tags for the first moose hunt in NH in 80 years back around 1989 before I moved here. My area was along the Kancamagus highway. I bought a cassette tape of a Canuck doing moose calling and learned it pretty well. Off to scout two weeks before the season, I draped a couple of cameras around my neck and stopped in at the nearest ranger station to my area and asked if they could point me in the direction of a nice bull so I could take some pictures. They directed me to a small lake down the road. I got there and did a few cow calls, waited, did a few more. No sign of a moose. I drove a couple more miles down the road and found a hiking trail. I went down the trail doing my cow moose calls and nothing. On the way out as I was doing the calls, I kept hearing these bull frogs doing a low croak, but still no moose. Back to the pond and around to the back of it. There was a tall boulder that I scrambled up and started cow calling again. After a very short while, I started hearing breaking branches and could see a large bull coming toward me...croaking like a bull frog as he walked! I had been shadowed down that other trail by a bull moose. That may be what you heard in the woods.

My partner and I came back for the three-day season two weeks later. It poured rain like I'd never seen before. Although I though I had that bull tied to a tree, we never saw hide nor hair of him or any other moose the whole time. We were one of only 16 who didn't tag out that year. It was a huge disappointment but a great experience.

[Cylvertip]

 Was not the swoop of a hawk or bird, though not a bad guess from someone who only had my verbal description. Quite different.  Made by vocal cords.

[/quote]

Sorry, not a SparrowHawk,  meant Nighthawk. 
    https://wildaboututah.org/nighthawks-go-boom/
I guess similar to a bull frog

[Okanagan]

Pianoman, loved the moose story.  The first three moose I heard after moving to British Columbia in the 70’s, I mistook for other animals.  Funny and embarrassing both, and I missed out on one easy bull if I’d only known it was a moose.  The sound last week was a pretty typical bull moose challenge, and if I'd been on the Thompson Plateau or in the Chilcotin I would call it a moose without puzzling further...  but not likely between Sequim and Port Angeles.   

Cylvertip, growing up in Eastern WA we called nighthawks bullbats.  Loved that distinctive soft roar of their swoop in the dark dusk of an evening.

[Okanagan]

Will add that several long time woodsmen in this area think that the sound was made by a cougar.  Doggone, wish I had stepped behind a bush and given it a Rainshadow juvenile cougar whistle to see if it would reply or come closer.  It was definitely coming my way and the easiest path was on the old road. Might have made for an easy shot.  I had a Rainshadow cougar whistle call around my neck, plus an open reed "do anything" predator call.

[Mudman]

   Deer or Raven.

[Goshawk]

Embarrassingly enough, I spent a few minutes last Saturday trying to find what ever it was that was chirping at me from a stand of alders and hemlocks.  It sounded a lot like a bird of some sort giving me a rather rhythmic scolding.  I finally figured out that it was a branch about 10' off the ground rubbing on another tree that the breeze would move around; EGAD!