Birds chirping at 2am?

1. 79

   ii3rittlesposted 11 years ago

   Birds chirping at 2am?
   
   I noticed this the last few years. I hear a handful of birds singing & chirping from 2AM on. Is this normal for early spring? I never noticed it before just 2 years ago. I live in Ohio, in Cleveland so I don't like in a woodsy area. Its almost as noisy as they are at sunrise.

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2. 76

   LA Elsenposted 11 years ago

   I hate to say it, but it could be a cat or another predator in the area doing some hunting. We had adopted a cat that we would have to let outside every evening because she was used to "birding" as my mom called it. She would climb the trees and stir up trouble. It would wake me up because I had a tree next to my bedroom window. It drove me nuts!

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   1. 79

      ii3rittlesposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      We do have a lot of strays in the area. I see at least 2 a week crossing the road. In the 4 years I lived here I probably seen 20+ different strays.

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3. 60

   MickSposted 11 years ago

   In the UK, it is common to hear blackbirds chirping in the early hours, they will feed at night.  I don't know the US equivalent to the blackbird, the European blackbird comes from theTurdidae family.

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   1. 79

      ii3rittlesposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      The black birds look like black sparrows. We have brown male & female sparrows but with black birds only the female is brown I am guessing they are related.

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4. 85

   aviannoviceposted 11 years ago

   In most places that I have lived, mockingbirds have been the culprits.  Do you hear lots of different sounds that could be many birds?  Any residual light is enough to keep these characters awake the entire night.  There a a few other birds that do night time crooning as well, but it is generally our little mocker.

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   1. 79

      ii3rittlesposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      There isn't much light on our street but they do sound like 3 to 5 different types of birds.

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5. 74

   nArchuletaposted 11 years ago

   The worst chirping I ever heard was when I lived in Croata. The seagulls were so noisy. Not just chirping either, weird seagull noises. Maybe it's just a sign that spring really is coming!

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6. 85

   Billie Kelpinposted 11 years ago

   In Orange County, CA, mocking birds sing during those hours and go through their complete repartoire.  It's very amazing - not conducive to getting back to sleep if you've awaken, but AMAZING.  There was some kind of heron (huge things) that nested one year at the RV park we stayed at in Newport Beach.  The baby birds "yelled" all night long in the ugliest kind of sound pattern you'd want to hear.  (I don't think you have those in Cleveland (tee hee).

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7. 53

   skyfallingyetposted 6 years ago

   If the bird sounds like the one in this youtube video then it's an Mockingbird.
   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kCh2eyDSeNE
   
   Wikipedia says that it is amorous batchelors that are doing the singing and that they can migrate apparently they don't always.
   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_mockingbird
   
   Once they come and sit by your window at night signing it doesn't matter if you go outside and shoot a gun, it will be back. They say it's a sin to kill a mockingbird. They can be maddening when you have a terrible headache, I tell ya.
   
   It's illegal to possess one of these birds. (who would want to? They are so freakin noisy!) But when I was a kid, there was someone I went to school with that had a mockingbird in their house, it talked. Rarely, but it did talk. They mimic what they hear like parrots.

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