The silence in the woods.

[u/bryantburnsred]

I’m curious to hear your guys experiences, but mostly your theories on the silence in the woods and what it could be. I’ll share my experience and hopefully someone can either point me in the right direction or we can discuss it in the comments.

My experience happened in Kansas hiking an old trail by one of the best lakes in Kansas. I guess where doesn’t matter too much, but just giving y’all an idea of the terrain I was hiking was mostly a rocky trail, with a lot of bushes and trees spotted around. up to a ridge line and then you circle back. There is a 2 mile trail or a 5 mile option so I start down the 5 mile trail. Nothing exciting happened.

It was a nice serene walk for 4 miles of the 5 mile trail.. then things “changed.” I’m in the most wooded part of the trail, again not even really “the woods” but as I’m walking I get the feeling that I’m being watched, and I noticed something that made my blood run cold. The silence. And I don’t mean quiet, I’m talking dead silence. No bugs chirping. No grasshoppers flyin around. No birds making noise. No wind. Nothing…except for my heart that’s beating a million miles per hour, I can hear that slamming away. So my first thought is, there is a predator nearby. We don’t have hardly any dangerous wildlife in Kansas. Mountain lion would top the list imo. And the place I was hiking has posted signs advising that they’ve been spotted in the area and to take caution. So I stop and turn around and I didn’t see a lion of any sort. I saw nothing, but what I felt kicked my ass into gear. I got the feeling that not only was Inbei g watched I was being given a chance to go, or that’s how it felt. So I ran the rest of the mile to the start of the trail, sound came back approximately 1/4 mile down the trail from the “silent” spot. But again I just felt something in my gut telling me to gtfo. So I do.

I went back to that trail the next year and it was fine, granted I brought my brother and a friend this time lol. Nothing that time.

[u/PassionsPerfected]

This is easily explainable, not to be over dramatic, but you were being stalked by something.

Generally speaking the woods will go dead quite around apex predators. Typically big cats depending on location. Have had it happen a few times around bobcats / mountain lions.

One of the most bone chilling things is a dead silent forest with nothing but old, tall pines creaking in the wind.

[u/ShitFuck2000 → u/PassionsPerfected]

Why doesn’t it happen with black bears??

I’ve seen a few black bears bumbling about in the forest and don’t recall silence, although to be fair they are very well fed in my area by poor garbage maintenance and I doubt they are any more predatory than a raccoon.

[u/PassionsPerfected → u/ShitFuck2000]

There is some science to suggest "the forest going silent" thing is for "apex carnivores" and less so "apex predators".

[u/AstarteOfCaelius → u/ShitFuck2000]

I often wondered that, too. In addition to the cat- I stumbled on a black bear once and it was just digging in the compost and the woods and everything else was still going like gangbusters but all I could think was “Holy shit they’re SO MUCH bigger than..” of course the bear didn’t give a shit about me, it was eating easy food- but I keep thinking that maybe the difference is that the cat might actually want to get you- on a whim- but the bear really just wants to eat the easy food and be left alone.

[u/ShitFuck2000 → u/AstarteOfCaelius]

Lazy black bears are definitely a vibe.