"Hear a thud"

[affert]

What animal (human?) makes a thud?

I was minding my own business, chopping a trunk into blocks (more firewood!) when "You hear a thud from the South-east"

Once I finished my chopping, I hid and wandered off to the south-east, but never saw anything that might have made that noise.  I've spent a bunch of time wandering around the zoomed-out map looking for tracks to no avail.

I'm paranoid because I saw a red warrior in the distance a few days ago, but wasn't able to track him down.

[koteko]

Had the same problem recently - would be great to know what causes it

I think once I found a bird carcass, and later heard a goshawk, so that might be one of the culprits.

[PALU]

I believe most of the time it's caused by birds of prey attacking animals (possibly birds exclusively: I'm not sure). I don't know if it can happen due to other predator attacks.

I'm fairly sure Njerps don't go thud in the night, but I have caught them felling trees (in one case I believe he used an axe stolen from my homestead...).

[caius]

I've never had NPCs enter my homestead. I had been worried my homestead might be raided, but it hasn't happened in numerous characters.

I do still put up a fence around my homestead though.

[spamgoose]

I'm pretty sure I've heard a thud and it indicated a light trap going off with a bird. Loop snare or light lever. Also, as others have said, I've definitely heard a thud and it indicated a bird-of-prey attacking another bird. I wonder if its birds hitting the ground/being trapped on the ground.

In the case of birds-of-prey, they don't always kill the victim in the spot of the thud. So sometimes you won't see anything, other than maybe a feather.

Edit: I checked my message log to make sure I wasn't crazy. Yea I hear thuds all the time when a bird is trapped. I don't think I hear it when a hare gets caught in the same trap. I will keep my eye open for it though. My theory is that thud is bird interacting with ground.

[PALU]

It's true traps can generate thuds as well (I'd forgotten about that), although I've never heard it from snares, only lever traps, and I don't think it's birds only (but I can't swear about that). I think the thud in that case is the weight dropping.

Neither a fence nor traps keep robbers or Njerps out (I've had robbers climb fences after first wading through freezingly cold water to bypass the pit traps by the landward fence, and I've had a Njerp systematically disable bear traps (probably a couple of dozen) in a supposedly protective trap line). Annoyingly, the Njerp passed by my stealthed character just a few tiles away without either the trap reset work being interrupted or the dog raising the alarm, presumably because he wasn't actively hostile since he didn't see my character.

[spamgoose]

I checked out the game definitions files. Hearing a thud is something "dropping down", but not the combat one we're use to: "You hear something dropping down in the DIRECTION".

If you can see it it says "SOMENPC drops down on the ground." And if you can only hear it it says "You hear a thud from the DIRECTION".

Just to repeat, it's not when somebody falls in combat. So I think it probably can only refer to birds (what else is in there air?)... or maybe squirrels if they failed a climb check (hah not sure if possible). Something about the trap mechanism for birds means they "fall" into the trap. Presumably birds attacked by birds of prey also fall from the sky. A bird landing (on its own accord) has a different sound/message. I suspect if there was a way for an NPC to try to climb and fail they'd probably make that sound, but I don't know of any NPCs that climb anything other than fences.

Edit: PALU you may be right about it being the trap falling. I can't remember ever hearing it with deadfall traps though so maybe the lever has a special "falling" property.

Edit2: Actually, the definition clearly says NPC for the falling, so I am pretty sure it's the bird itself.

[Pocgels]

I hear this sound when birds land in traps

[Jephraim]

Sorry to revive such an old thread, but I found it because I heard a thud! I heard the thud "in the west". The only problem is... the west was all water... 

Not sure what could have thudded in open water.

[PALU]

A bird of prey bringing down another bird can cause a thud on water.