Why Are Birds Singing At Night

I've noticed this here in Vancouver as well but I chalk it up to the rise in night time marauders like skunks and raccoons that have nearly doubled in the years since our last major garbage strike. Mostly the chickadees seem to be more active and noisy at night.

reply to post by pieman


I think the bee thing has been solved and is a parasite. There was also a bat issue over here on the east coast USA and that was attributed to a fungus (recent article in Science). So not magnetic fields in that case...

Interesting thought about racing pigeons you should look on pigeon fancier sights see if anyone is reporting anything, could make up a post and ask them yourself.

Yeah just adding to the thread, it's happening down hee in Austarlia as well, both on the east and west sides of the countries, in the suburbs and the cities.

As far as the changing of sounds it's because everything on Earth vibrates and when one species becomes extinct, no matter how small, something else takes over the vibration/frequency to balance it out. I personally believe it is all the DUMBs they are trying to finish off as there are that many small earthquakes going on all over the planet atm in locations that go from one base to another or where they are wanting to put a DUMB. So I'd definitely put my hand on it has something to do with that....

Thanks guys.

Wow, we thought it was just us in our Phoenix locale, look at all these responses talking about the same thing.

And it's not just the US, it's Ireland, Australia, and the UK too.

For the the first time ever, this is officially weirding me out.

[edit on 20-3-2009 by Retseh]

Originally posted by Retseh
For the the first time ever, this is officially weirding me out.
[edit on 20-3-2009 by Retseh]

Yeah man it's just to do with the underground bases and more species becoming extinct and now the birds have to fill that void, while it's unusual and most definitely annoying when you roll over look at the clock and see 1.30am and are like why the hell are the birds going off at this hour!? It is nothing to really worry about, unless you can single handedly stop all the DUMBs being built and other animal species from becoming extinct! LOL

Just try and look into vibrations and wave lengths and you might find some answers, or at least what I'm saying may begin to make some more sense!

I asked the same question on my signature a couple of weeks back, I just assumed light pollution or magnetic field issues, since birds can detect magnetic lines and such, maybe it affects them in other ways too.

hi, i am in New zealand and have also noticed this on occasions in the last year. not every night but maybe once a week.

strange. shouldnt they be sleeping?? something is causing them to wake up or think its daytime.

arent birds highly aware of magnetic field of earth. ie - migrating birds use this to find where they are going to.

maybe a pole shift???

Birds have always sang at night here in missouri.

Originally posted by TheMythLives
Its strange, maybe a warning or a celebration?

I'm gonna have to go with the warning hypothesis, what with global-warming and what-not. But yes, I've noticed this as well.. and I don't live in the U.S or the U.K

Peace

reply to post by corvin77

Maybe something major is going on with earths magnetic fields

I think you may be onto something here -

Following Earth's Magnetic Field: Chemical Reaction In Birds Provides Sense Of Direction During Migratory Flights

ScienceDaily (May 14, 2004) — Migrating birds stay on track because of chemical reactions in their bodies that are influenced by the Earth’s magnetic field, a UC Irvine-led team of researchers has found.

The birds are sensitive even to rapidly fluctuating artificial magnetic fields. These fields had no effect on magnetic materials such as magnetite, indicating that the birds do not rely on simple chunks of magnetic material in their beaks or brains to determine direction, as experts had previously suggested.

The results are reported in the May 13 issue of Nature. The study is the first to reveal the mechanism underlying magnetoreception – the ability to detect fluctuations in magnetic fields – in migratory birds.

Source : Science Daily

Birds Can "See" Earth's Magnetic Field
September 27, 2007

To find north, humans look to a compass. But birds may just need to open their eyes, a new study says.

Scientists already suspected birds' eyes contain molecules that are thought to sense Earth's magnetic field. In a new study, German researchers found that these molecules are linked to an area of the brain known to process visual information.

In that sense, "birds may see the magnetic field," said study lead author Dominik Heyers, a biologist at the University of Oldenburg.

Source : National Geographic News

Birds Navigate Using Magnetic Compass-Vision

October 30, 2007

For decades, scientists have known that migratory birds use Earth’s geomagnetic field—along with light, stars, and other cues—to guide them on remarkably long journeys. But it is unclear just how birds sense this relatively weak field and use it for navigation.

Now German researchers have provided new evidence supporting the notion that migratory birds actually see magnetic fields. Postdoctoral fellow Dominik Heyers and his colleagues peered into the brains of garden warblers, which travel seasonally between northern Europe and southern Africa, and uncovered a link between neurons in the eye and a region of the brain thought to be involved in migration.

Source : Discover

And the Cambridge study coming out with its nonsense about urban stress to discredit the possibly thought provoking real reason, IMHO, backs up the notion that geomagnetic field changes are the cause.

Interesting. I heard birds singing in the middle of the night for the first time last summer. I'm a night owl myself, so even though I enjoyed it, I found it a bit odd.

Because if they are Mocking birds, there is a street light or security light on somewhere keeping them awake. Bugs fly under the light and on the ground below so the darned birds will stay up at night eating bugs and SINGING! I guess it's the avian version of snacking and partying. Lucky me, I moved from where they used to drive me crazy, disabled my security lights at my new place, but can hear them down the street occasionally.

Definately here in Hunter Valley NSW Australia, the Magpies have been going off day and night for the past year. I have noticed smaller birds singing at night also.

This thread got my interest because last week I heard ducks and Canadian geese around midnight and thought it was very strange. I just brushed it off and said it's probably mating season, but maybe theres more to it?

Animals can, of course, sense natural disasters.

What are these birds sensing that they've never before felt the need to vocalize about?

They are confused by daylight savings time too?

actually, is there just in increase of the members of the nightshift?

The answer to this lies in the reason why birds sing..........to attract a mate and to advertise their territory to other birds. It is only the males which sing by the way. Birds don't just sing for no reason and certainly would actually be unlikely to sing if they were stressed or confused.

The reason for night singing is believed to be a strategy to combat ever increasing noise pollution. With their song being drowned out during the day by traffic noise etc. species are beginning to evolve a night singing stratergy to overcome this.

Those that sing in the quieter hours of night get heard and find a mate and thus establish a territory more quickly. In the UK it started with Robins but probabably other species such as Blackbirds and Song Thrushes are evolving this also. It's nothing to do with magnetic fields etc. just a clever evolutionary step to overcome man's influence on their environment in our ever busy cities.

You are only noticing this now as it is the beginning of spring in the northern hemisphere and the onset of the peak "singing" period for birds. There is nothing weird about this at all, I recall hearing night singing Robins in UK cities over 20 years ago. It's nothing new or unusual, just more species are evolving this clever trick.......and probably sleeping a bit more in the day!!



[edit on 20-3-2009 by highlander2008]

[edit on 20-3-2009 by highlander2008]

Ontario Canada here. Wow.
All I can say is good thing I'm not paranoid because to see this thread only a day after I was totally freaked out by the same experience
makes for a very enticing coincidence.
I stepped outside in the middle of the night to
have a cigarette and suddenly thought: "What is with this bird?"
It was singing away as it flew by and landed on a nearby tree.
The whole moment seemed way out of place I thought what was it's problem?
If you closed your eyes my friends, you'd swear it was 6 in the morning yet midnight had just passed into today.
Maybe the wind was blowing towards it, who knows?
To see this many others observing the same behaviour different than the norm leads one to believe there is one impressive reason behind it. I think the birds are reacting to a critical change in something very important to them, something they have grown very accustomed to.
I would love to know what it really is.
At least they're not dropping out of the sky en masse.
Now that would be a harbinger of some deep trouble.

My interest was also caught by this thread, because very recently I've heard birds singing at night. I live in a rural area and not in UK or US...
Many people in this thread have posted to have heard this phenomena, for the first time, only very recently. Interesting...

Hello everyone, in Indy here, and I noticed this going on about 4 yrs ago. I heard a mockingbird go on forever one night. Not that unusual, but I made a mental note to listen for them again, and about three nights later, it was like they were all yelling at each other. It wasnt just the mockingbird this time, a couple of different calls. I mentioned it to my friends, but no one really thought anything of it, only that it was strange.
It didn't happen every night. But often. I will keep my ears open when I am outside looking up!!!!