Bird activity at night/Nightsinging

[AndrewB]

For the past couple of nights as I have gone to bed about midnight I have heard birds singing very audibly from my bedroom. I have noticed this in the past also, and I gather it is not that uncommon.

Unfortunately I am not able to recognise which type of bird it is, but feel certain it is a day visitor, possibly a starling. This usually seems to occur in the winter months, and I wondered if this could be due to the fact that the hours of darkness are longer?

I dont suppose birds that are active during the day would do much else at night apart from sing, as feeding would be impossible, but I wondered if anyone else had any experiences of this?

[nightowl57]

Hi Andrewb,

I know Robins, especially near a lampost will sing at night, they are very territorial, and will sing throughout the winter, I have a blackbird nearby that seems to sing in the dark aswell!!

[LynM]

This is uncanny! At half three this morning, OH woke me to listen to a Wood Pigeon calling! It carried on for a good five minutes with its plaintif call and then fell silent. I should say that it was full moonlight with shadows being cast on the ground like the sun would, so perhpas it felt that it was already dawn!

When we used to keep chickens, we had a cockerel who would crow in spite of being shut in the hen house at night. Again, it was always a moonlit night. He rarely crowed before 6am at any other time, even in mid summer.

[jaykay]

My night time singers are black birds, they have no respect for the hours of darkness around here. I've read somewhere that it's the street lighting that is causing them to do this.

Jeanette

[darrenm]

Robins here seem to be the main night singers but a Blackbird was on full song last year well before dawn for a two week period.

[Dogghound]

I was up for work well before light this morning and had Robins and Blackbirds singing their hearts out.

[AndrewB]

Thank you all for the replies. I have read that robins and blackbirds have a tendency to be active earlier/later than other birds, and I have occasionaly had them still feeding in the garden at dusk.

Perhaps also nightsinging is more common in urban areas. An earlier poster mentioned street lighting, and also there is possibly less traffic at night so they can make themselves heard.