Birdsong at night

[Toddy]

For the past week or so there's been a bird singing away in the trees along the burn and it seems to go on 24/7. I've just let the cat in and the bird is trilling merrily, just as it was at 10pm too. It's noticeable just now and I have yet to catch sight of the bird.
What bird is likely to sing in January, at night, in a pouring down wet woodland, in Scotland?

cheers,
Toddy

[andy_e]

Don't know about woodland but there were a few "burds" singing in my street about the same time last night :D

[robin wood]

Birdsong at night usually makes me think nightingale but not in January in Scotland. The two I most often hear singing late are robins and blackbirds. There was a post here recently with some links to sites with recordings of birdsong, you could compare to, if you only have one bird singing its often easy to recognise.

[Beer Monster]

I suspect you live in the countryside but in the cities the street lights are throwing the birds off kilter as they are bathed in a permanent light so feel they have to defend their territories 24/7 so sing all night!

See this thread on WAB which may give you a few clues:- Night-time birdsong (http://www.wildaboutbritain.co.uk/forums/british-birds/8502-night-time-birdsong.html)

[hammock monkey]

i would have said Robin, looks like what some of the WAB folk have also said.

A nightingale is a fantastic thing to sit there and listen too - one of my favorite wildlife experiences, its eerily melancholy yet uplifting. Look out for them in the summer :)

[Toddy]

I finally caught sight of it, it looks sort of like a larger version of a female siskin :confused: No idea what it is though.

I was starting to wonder if someone had lost a budgie :rolleyes:

Thanks for the links :)

cheers,
Toddy

[JonnyP]

I finally caught sight of it, it looks sort of like a larger version of a female siskin :confused: No idea what it is though.

I was starting to wonder if someone had lost a budgie :rolleyes:

Thanks for the links :)

cheers,
Toddy

Song thrush comes to mind, you can hear one here Toddy http://www.rspb.org.uk/wildlife/birdguide/name/s/songthrush/index.asp
They will often sing quite late but never heard them in the middle of the night. I suppose it could look like a large mrs siskin..?? I have heard robins singing in the middle of the night but they do not look like a large mrs siskin. Nightingales sing mainly at dawn and dusk but they shouldn't be in the country yet and are mainly down south.
Are you able to record the sound Toddy..?

[dwardo]

Looks like the one i heard yesterday evening and again this morning. Lovely call reet cheers you up :) thanks for link the JohnyP :)

[Toddy]

Really good links :D Much appreciated.

Recording sound is technically possible....if I pester on of my Tech refs :rolleyes: I'll see what we can do.

I get a lot of little birds in the garden, I'm sort of keeping an eye on them just now because of the RSPB garden watch thing.
Today I've seen, (greatest number of any species at one time)
8 bluetits
3 robins(one headed over the back fence with the resident one in full chase :) )
2 wrens
4 blackbirds,
3 thrushes
5 coal tits
7 great tits
10 siskins
3 reed buntings
7 chaffinches
5 wood pigeons
4 magpies
1 GS woodpecker
5 starlings
7 long tailed tits
1 bullfinch
2 hedge sparrows
6 house sparrows
3 tree sparrows (supposed to be shy, they just fit in with the rest here :confused: )
No greenfinches or goldies today.

I know it's just a representative sample of what this area has, but it pleases me to see them.

I've just checked out the window and wouldn't you believe it? the wee thing's silent :rolleyes: suppose he has to sleep sometime.

cheers,
Toddy

[robin wood]

looks sort of like a larger version of a female siskin

Now that's very odd because I didn't think any of the finch family really sang. Does it have a finchy type beak?

[Toddy]

I couldn't see clearly enough tbh, it was up the top of my apple tree. There were female siskins nearby and it kind of fitted in...but a bitty bigger. That said, the siskins have got smallish beaks for finches anyway. I wondered about female greenfinch but it wasn't as bright and the greenfinch sort of wheezes and chirrups.
After all this I haven't heard a tweet all evening from it :rolleyes:
cheers,
Toddy

[ol smokey]

I see you have the Hedgesparrow on your list. That was my first thought, it's song is similar to
the Robin but goes on a lot longer, and tends to be sweeter and gentler. Look for the dark grey top to its head. May be wrong, but just a thought. Robins tend to be one of the last to
sing in the evening up this way, but I am never out too early in the mornings these days being retired, though that is no excuse. Like my lye in these cold mornings, do plenty of dog walking most of the day.

[JonnyP]

3 reed buntings




I like reed buntings... You must be near water then Toddy...

http://i152.photobucket.com/albums/s188/jonpickett/ReedBuntingsmall.jpg

[Donny]

For the past few weeks I've noticed alot of birdsong at night too

[Prophecy]

Yep I heard a bird song the other night too, at around 10 or 11pm!

I recall watching Titchmarsh saying the streetlights had them thinking it was dawn...! :bluThinki

[Toddy]

I like reed buntings... You must be near water then Toddy...

http://i152.photobucket.com/albums/s188/jonpickett/ReedBuntingsmall.jpg


There's a burn not 30' from the gable wall. It's a scraggy mess but the amount of wildlife we get is astonishing.

Your photo is excellent :) The reed buntings I see here have darker heads. The males have black polls and even the females have very dark lines defining their faces.
They usually come up to the garden when the weather turns cold, the male comes first and them comes his little harem of females (I don't know if this is how it really is, but it's how they arrive and there are always more females than males too)

The bird is singing now up in the ivy covered silver birch and I still can't workout what it is.
HWMBLT says that we can't record it properly :(

cheers,
Toddy

[BushTucker]

I had a similar experience last year around feb/march. You could hear this bird squarking as it went up and down my road, now I live 3000mtrs from the nearest sea water edge and it bothered me for nights. I sat up all night when I was working and to my astonishment it turned out to be a black face seagull. It had a nest on a roof 6 doors up. Never heard it since.

[Toddy]

I don't think, from reading the rspb site, that it can be this one but it sounds like this.
http://www.rspb.org.uk/wildlife/birdguide/name/l/laplandbunting/index.asp
It starts and then it goes on for aaaages.

cheers,
Toddy

[BushTucker]

Um, must be lovely to listen to

[JonnyP]

There's a burn not 30' from the gable wall. It's a scraggy mess but the amount of wildlife we get is astonishing.

Your photo is excellent :) The reed buntings I see here have darker heads. The males have black polls and even the females have very dark lines defining their faces.
They usually come up to the garden when the weather turns cold, the male comes first and them comes his little harem of females (I don't know if this is how it really is, but it's how they arrive and there are always more females than males too)

The bird is singing now up in the ivy covered silver birch and I still can't workout what it is.
HWMBLT says that we can't record it properly :(

cheers,
Toddy

Does anyone there have a pda (hand held computer) or a mobile phone that records..? I have recorded bird song quite well on such things..
The above photo is a female reed bunting. This one, like you say, with the dark bib, is the male..
http://i152.photobucket.com/albums/s188/jonpickett/Reedbunting648x486.jpg

Do you get Cetti's warblers there...?

[Toddy]

I've got a psion and a palm pilot that both record.....maybe himself is being too picky over quality?

No, I don't think we do get the Cetti's warbler here though.

We're warm in these two villages; they sit on a tear drop shaped rise out of the valley floor and we are always a good two or three degrees warmer than the surrounding area. The river effectively surrounds us in a big meandering semi circle. The area has a fertile and very varied flora and fauna for central Scotland.

cheers,
Toddy

[nicodiemus]

Sounds like a nice garden Toddy. Next time i go to Rothsay to see me gran, perhaps i'll bypass a couple of days and set up a hide in your back garden while you're not looking, and bring some long lenses...

[Toddy]

:D It gets noisy, the hedgehogs are a pita when you try to sleep in the garden :rolleyes: and the dawn chorus is intense :) The gardens aren't very big but the woodland and the burn along side attract a lot of wildlife.

Funnily enough HWMBLT says someone had a basha, etc., all set up in the castle policy woods this morning :) All neat and tidy and if you didn't know it wasn't usually there, then you wouldn't have spotted it. :cool:

cheers,
Toddy