Early morning vocalizations heard on three consecutive days witnessed in Clatsop County, Oregon

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June 2004 For three days at dawn, I heard a long series of calls, the first of which lasted for about half an hour. I was not fully awake for the first calling, and half awake, wondered if it was a screaming cow, being attacked or something. We have major preditors here, including a Mountain Lion. THIS WAS NOT A MOUNTAIN LION. We've heard their screams, and this was nothing like that. Each dawn, the calls occured for a shorter and shorter duration. I was wide awake on the second and third dawns. On the third day at dusk, there was a brief series of calls. It was the softest in volume. Since then, I have heard nothing. I live on one side of the Nehalem River valley, up a little on the ridge, and it sounded like the calls came from the opposite ridge which is very forested. The calls sounded like a huge howler monkey, sort of a whoooop whoooop whooooop who's pitch went up at the ending. As it progressed, the whooops got closer and closer together, until it was whooopwhoooopwhoooop, and ...