Why Are Birds Singing At Night

Originally posted by pluckynoonez
Maybe it is the 11th hour and the birds have insomnia. They could be trying to warn us of impending doom. Tis entirely possible.

The headline i`m waiting for is Scientist discover birds sleeping -in / giving the dawn chorus a miss !

All joking aside ,

Are they catching a few ZZZZZ during the day ?

Or just operating day to day ~ taking less rest ?

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Originally posted by pluckynoonez
Maybe it is the 11th hour and the birds have insomnia. They could be trying to warn us of impending doom. Tis entirely possible.

As funny a pun that is it does seem to ring a bit true. I hope not...my clock is slow and it may catch me by surprise.

I noticed the exact same thing at my house in Northern California

reply to post by Retseh


Been doing it in my hood for years - maybe even 10....


????

Or MAYBE
You guys are over reacting?
Maybe birds sing whenever the heck they feel like it?

Birds singing at night has nothing to do with warning us from impending doom
Some people are weird geeze.

Yeah I live in New Zealand and noticed it a couple of times lately , but they seem to stop a bit after dusk then start again around 1-2am and continue until dusk again. I didn't think anything of it until I saw this thread.

When I lived in L.A. I noticed more birds sang at night which I thought was a bit odd. When I thought about it logically, it never really gets dark in higher populated areas. Higher populated areas have a huge amount of "light pollution" at night. This would confuse the birds in thinking it is still daylight. Birds sleep when it is dark and those who have had birds as pets are familiar with a cage cover or blanket to help your birds sleep.

I strongly believe that city light pollution is detrimental to a bird's life span. They are basically sleep deprived.

[edit on 21-3-2009 by blissblender]

reply to post by Retseh


I am in north ga, and reported here on ats last year that the birds were doing this, I am listening to them now and it is after 2 in the morning, a quiet time. My manager has a pair of cockatiels, last year they started to sing all night, aggravating the families sleep, and they are getting louder each night, to the point that they want to give the birds up now in lieu of sleep! I work 3rd and constantly go outside to wake myself up, and all night long now the birds are singing and working, I see them carrying all kinds of stuff in thier mouths. Out front of my house, there is a birds nest made of dryer sheets, I thought that was some smart birds!

I do not know why they are doing this, but I can tell you that last night I heard a bird singing late at night and right now as I type this (11:19 PM), the bird is singing again. I only noticed this recently. Weird, doubt it could be anything serious but who knows.

Hi there, just thought I would add to the list of people noticing this. My cousin and I live in Glendale, CA and we just noticed the birds singing at night in our back yard. Personally I've NEVER heard birds singing at night until just recently.

Perhaps this is like when my cat would hide under the bed before a thunderstorm. The birds may be reacting to something that we can not sense. (well, some of us can't)

Holy Crap!


No kidding, last summer I noticed this myself... it was erie, like it was morning all night long...


I live in Atlanta... Actually just north of Atlanta in Johns Creek (Alpharetta for move-ins)






UPDATE: I just had a thought....

You know how several articles have been posted about the lack of sleep people have been getting lately... I wonder if it is related in anyway.

[edit on 21-3-2009 by HunkaHunka]

Originally posted by Retseh


I started researching this purely because after 4 years in the same house right at the very quiet and very dark edge of the desert, we have songbirds singing through the night for the first time ever.

The research seems to support a conclusion that this phenomenon only started to be noticed late in 2008.

Just what is going on, could this be a sign of something more significant, a change in our environment perhaps?

One thing is for sure, they are not singing in my neighborhood because of high ambient light levels or excessive noise during the day, it's pitch black at night and you can hear a pin drop during the day.

I have lived in the same location for over Two Decades, and I happen to reside right under a MAJOR Migratory Route for Birds.

During the Winter we even have a massive Canadian Goose invasion, especially on a lake in my Neighborhood. As a matter of fact, I witnessed a Double V Flock the other night, the largest I have ever seen. This formation must have consisted of at least Two or Three Dozen Birds, it was practically an entire Flight Wing lol.

However, I still only witness Birds singing when the sky first begins to take on a Lighter Blue hue in the Morning. At night, they are typically silent, but I have heard them make a raucous before over Cats, the Fox, and other disturbances. My dog actually alerted me to a disturbance one, and when I took her out, she ran to the tree and chased the cat off. Lol, what can I say? She likes her bird friends.

Birds will also sing at night if you simply make too much noise yourself (Not accusing you of anything). One time in a Car Lot my friends and I simply shut the car doors on our vehicle, and the birds went all Melodic on us. Another time my dog simply barked outside, and an entire tree of Birds began doing a boogey all over the branches, shuffling and singing lol.

One aspect you might look for, is ANYTHING out of the norm. It could even be something VERY slight, or a relatively unnoticeable phenomenon such as a gas leak.

I've noticed this the past month or two where I live here in Victorville,Ca.
I usually am out for at least an hour or two randomly throughout the night to check out the sky and the birds dont stop at all.
I don't know if I'd go as far as thinking something was seriously up with this or anything but it is kinda weird but so is finding pink dolphins in the us and pink elephants and frogs with three heads and such.
Maybe all animals are just going through random changes from a changing environment.

They do here in Albany NY. And I know a great deal about the creatures of the night, being an insomniac. It actually bothers me, not in an annoyed way, but in an alarmed way. Its a very creepy feeling.

On the subject of birds
I don't think it's just the song birds, because my daughter pointed out to me that we have been seeing Canada geese flying south from where we are in the Fraser Valley near the US border for a few weeks now and they usually fly north at this time of year.
Tonight (8-9pm) she said the ducks were all acting weird down at the pond by the library in town, while that not may seem too unusual, she goes to see the ducks every day and has never mentioned them acting weird before. She said they kept flying away and coming back over and over making a lot of noise while doing so.
If a duck could sing what would it sound like? This is in the heart of the city so a predator prowling the 1/2 acre man made concrete pond is unlikely.
She is almost 17 so she is pretty aware of some of these things, mind you she knows nothing about this thread.

I live in the suburbs of SW Houston and since losing my job in November I have spent nearly every night from 10pm to 5am taking smoke breaks every 30 to 45 minutes and the birds are noisy all night long.

Strange part is they shut up during the day.

It's the same song too, for the last 6 months the same song all night long.

I can't believe that i have came across a thread talking about birds singing at night. Where i am (Scotland) am hearing them all the time singing at night. I opened my door a few weeks ago to get fresh air and i noticed, not right away, that the birds where singing, then i noticed that it was 11:00 Pm or around that time. I was like ''WHAT'' brids..awake...singing...nighttime...march???

What went through my mind was, they know something!

Any Bird Experts around?

Well this is different.
But i've always heard birds sing/ crow/ call what have you, at night. Always.

Maybe it's just the birds in some particular areas. Like the article said, a robin was forced to sing at night because of heavy traffic drowning it out.

What exactly do you suggest is making birds behave like this, anyway??

Originally posted by daddyroo45
reply to post by Retseh

 

The simple answer is light pollution.Street lights,security lights,landscape lighting and so forth make the night not quite so dark. You could always hear birds on full moon clear nights.

Thats not possible, I live in the middle of nowhere, the nearest city is about 20 minutes away. No street or business lights on here at night.

The birds, singing during extended hours of the evening, are just trying to put a positive spin on the threat of a NWO, alien abductions, Nazis on the moon, and the end of the world as we know it. Even the lowly birds are subject to all of this distressing news!

Seriously though, I have noticed the geese staying overnight on the 15 acre lake just off our back patio, have been squawking quite a bit after dark. Just as curious, to me, is that many geese don't migrate anymore. Being in the Indy area, we have more than some foul (no pun intended) weather during winters. Believe me, if I had goose wings, I'd go south.

I do believe birds and other animals sometimes reflect sensitivity to forces of nature, prior to the event, such as earthquakes, etc. To determine when this is the case seems to be elusive in reality.