night noise from reserve

[brendaward]

Spent long weekend on the edge of the reserve that runs in between Aldbrugh and Thorpe Ness in Suffolk. During the night at approx 12.30 and 3.00, on two occasions we was woken by loud screaming of the Canadian Geese and the thousands of birds that live on the wetland. Even the birds in the trees on the site had burst into screams. The noise was quite deafening and disturbing. We thought there might be a fox on the wetland but it was so widespread we ruled that out.

There has been an Osprey sighted a bit further up the coast near Lowestof. Do you think it was something out of the ordinary that was upsetting them, or does this sometimes just happen with general predators?

[Gatekeeper]

Probably a fox. A few spooked birds can soon spook the rest.

[The Woodman]

There are a couple of things that cause birds to vocalise during the hours of darkness.

Back in the mid '70's when I lived in Wiltshire I noticed that when Concorde passed overhead on its way to the States at 9.10 each night the double boom of passing through the sound barrier caused the roosting pheasants to cry out or crow - that's a difficult bird sound to describe!

I've heard it a few times since when extremely loud airburst fireworks have been let off late at night by wedding parties and the like at nearby hotels. Thankfully this antisocial behaviour seems to have abated.

Electronic fox calls can have the same effect depending on the selected call.

I have a German made mouse call and sometimes when I use it in local woodland the Tawnies in the area all start calling. I don't believe birds some distance away will have heard the very high pitched call must must be responding to calls made by others for what ever reason.

What you heard brendaward could be reactive behaviour to such a stimulus - whatever it was. To have heard it such a scale must have been quite strange. I've never heard Canada Geese "screaming" but they are good at advertising the presence of a predator as gatekeeper says.

[Cowgirl]

Originally Posted by The Woodman

caused the roosting pheasants to cry out or crow - that's a difficult bird sound to describe!

Craawking

[captaincarot]

don't know what was causing your bird noise, but it wasn't concorde's sonic boom as it never flew supersonic over britain. acceleration past mach one never occurred until it was over the ocean

[solus]

Originally Posted by captaincarot

don't know what was causing your bird noise, but it wasn't concorde's sonic boom as it never flew supersonic over britain. acceleration past mach one never occurred until it was over the ocean

Maybe not, but the Concorde's sonic boom was heard regularly and clearly from the Isles of Scilly!

[captaincarot]

Originally Posted by solus

Maybe not, but the Concorde's sonic boom was heard regularly and clearly from the Isles of Scilly!

you can blame the french for that one of the fixed flightpaths from CDG went quite close to the scillies, no doubt achieving mach one somewhere the other side of the islands

[The Woodman]

I'm happy to be corrected but what was it that caused the double sonic boom at around 9:10 pm every evening. It was always put down to Concorde?

[captaincarot]

Originally Posted by The Woodman

I'm happy to be corrected but what was it that caused the double sonic boom at around 9:10 pm every evening. It was always put down to Concorde?

no idea mate but not concorde it never went fast enough.

were you anywhere near whelford or any of the other myriad airforce bases in the area.

[The Woodman]

Now you've got me on a mission!

Have just emailed the CAA.