night noises

Most evenings since daylight is longer, Maxine enjoys settling on the porch in a chair positioned so she could view the whole length of the porch. The weather is so lovely we leave the french doors opened and we can see her. She has a quick entrance into the house if she smells something foreign in the air. Last night, I noticed her body language changed as she came in early, headed straight to the guest bedroom where she could look out the open window. As dusk settled, she jumped off the bed and hid in the laundry area. A few minutes later, I went into that room to close the window so we could put on the A/C and saw a beautiful deer standing in my garden. You could hear it walk through the leaves and onto the gravel road. It turned and came down our driveway toward the house. Probably looking for some tender, delicious flowers. Neighbors tell us deer like tulips, including the bulbs, my impatiens......so that's where my new pink ones went! Guess they don't eat geraniums. They're still on the porch steps. I've noticed when I walk around Lowe's garden section, some of the labels on the plants state"deer proof." Time for me to pay attention to details. Some time later that night when it was dark, Cliff wanted to see if the deer was still around the flowers or if more had joined. With flashlight in hand (still off), he slowly opened the porch door and started out. Three steps onto the porch, he heard a huffing/puffing noise followed by a throaty gr-r-r-r and came right back in, eyes as big as half-dollars. I tried to send him back out with the flashlight on so he could see first hand which wild night creature it was. He said it wasn't the deer! This afternoon as I pen this blog, he's on a site that describes sounds and lets you hear different animal communications. According to the site, the one that sounds most like what he heard last night was the sound the black bear makes when she's herding her cub to safety. I'll send him out again tonight......he needs to verify this!