Singing Birds at Midnight in December!

[annies1]

Well It's like the title says:-

We where coming out of the pub facing our house last night at midnight when I thought I was hearing things..... a bird (or a few) SINGING LOUDLY and persistently in the woods over the road. Although the area is rural the road is quite a busy one, could it be the traffic keeping the birds up

What bird sings (beautifully) at that hour? I am still quite amazed by it and am wondering if this is usual? Having been a city girl until recently I am wondering if this used to happen there but because city's never go quiet I just hadn't heard them?

Thanks for your help guys - oh and as I type there's flock of gees flying noisily overhead.

[Jason Claxton]

I have a Robin in my garden that sings at night ,I love to hear them singing at night , it is also active through out the night.Birds do take advantage of lights for nocturnal feeding,but I'm sure that some are more active at night than we think.Jason

[lol geoff]

Might be a robin. When I go out for a walk at night there is a stretch of road where the dense trees over hang the road and over the few street light that are there. As you walk along every streetlight you come to you can hear a robin singing high up in the canopy, always makes me smile thinking of them guarding thier own little light all through the night.

[JeffH]

As others have said, Robins do sing at night. But several other birds have recently resumed their singing (more typically at dawn and dusk) and we have had singing Blackbirds and Song Thrushes in the garden during the last week or so.

Derwent May (the nature writer) mentioned this subject in The Times recently -
Nature Notes: Dec 8 - Times Online

Jeff

[Beekeeper]

This is an interesting post, on Friday night i woke up sometime around 3 am and a bird was singing beautifully somewhere close by, it was still singing at 6 am, i didn't recognise the song but it wasn't a Thrush, Blackbird or Robin.

I think it could have been a Nightingale but not sure, there always used to be one around here a few years ago as my father used to hear it, due to being a bit deaf in one ear thanks to the local doctor Mengle (Another story) if i am laying on the good ear i hear nothing which really annoys me, especially when the dawn corus starts as i love to hear that.

Ian

[solus]

Sorry to disappoint you but it definitely wasn't a Nightingale! They have all long left for their wintering grounds and in any case even when they are here in summer are pretty rare and favour woodland with open areas of dense, scrubby shrubs. At this time of year it was most likely to be a Robin or a Blackbird (in that order).

[Monika]

Did you know that when "a nightingale sang in Berkeley Square", it is likely to have been a robin? Because even in quieter times, Berkeley Square, London, is not likely ever have been inhabited by nightingales.

Coming back to annies1's posting: yes, it was probably a robin but even they only sing a sort of sad little ditty at this time of the year, rather than their their full territorial fanfare!

[Monkey Orchid]

A few years ago I was walking back along a city street from a friend's house in Newcastle upon Tyne after a late night, at about 2 AM. I have a clear memory of listening to a blackbird singing loudly and cheerfully from somewhere amongst the houses. It really stuck with me because I remember being so surprised that a bird would be singing at that time of night, and wondering if the sodium streetlights had tricked it into thinking it was near dawn. Such a lovely sound.

[Dutchess]

I was about to say that MonkeyOrchid, our local General Hosptial has floodlit carparks throughout the night, all year round. You can hear the birds twittering there at anytime. I thought it was an accepted thing that urban birds, such as in the West End of London, do the same thing. Or have I been dreaming things again...

D.

[Beekeeper]

Originally Posted by solus

Sorry to disappoint you but it definitely wasn't a Nightingale! They have all long left for their wintering grounds and in any case even when they are here in summer are pretty rare and favour woodland with open areas of dense, scrubby shrubs. At this time of year it was most likely to be a Robin or a Blackbird (in that order).

Good point regarding Nightingale solus, however the ground at the rear of my property apart from trees has a dense undisturbed covering of brambles, holly and numerous other shrubs so by what you are saying it would be the ideal habitat for a Nightingale.

My father was a bit of an expert on bird song and if he said he heard a Nightingale i would have no doubt he was correct.

As for Blackbird or Robin it was neither, i know the song of both very well and this was not one i recognised.

The only other possibility i can think of is Blackcap, i know they generally go home as well for the winter but i also know some don't and that is one little bird we do see regulary around these parts.

Ian