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Another nocturnal creature commonly heard at night is the "tik-tik', so called because of the sound it makes.  There is a speculation  among our superstitious folks that the creature is a pet of a witch, not the witch itself.  Some believe, like a "wakwak", it could be invisible at times.  A friend told me that one bright moonlight night, while promenading on the street, a tiktik "sang" by his side, but upon looking around he found nothing.  He only heard the sound of something walking ahead of him, like chicken stepping on the gravelly road and then the unseen creature "sang" its song again.  This time, he got scared.  He picked up a stick and beat the spot where the sound of something walking came from.  But he hit nothing.  Seconds later he heard the creature again already making hysterical sounds among the coconut grooves as though laughing mockingly at him.

A spinster, who lived with her two other sisters, told ne that one night, they heard a "tiktik" on their yard and at the same time somebody walking around the house.  Suspecting at once that it was the neighbor notorious as a witch, she called him by his name.  To her surprise and fear, the man answered "Yes it is I."

She demanded angrily why he was on the yard making sounds of a "tiktik." He answered that he ran out of buyo leaves to chew that he decided to pilfer some buyo leaves from the spinster's yard.  She bawled out at him, and he left apologizing.

The funny thing was after that the same man was believed seen as a chicken scratching on the rooftop of a neighbor's house one bright moonlight night.  When the chicken was driven out of the roof, it disappeared.  Seconds later, the guy was seen on the yard of that house.  He hastily left before he could be asked to explain his presence in the vicinity at that unholy hour.  It was midnight.

What really is the "tiktik"?