When walking in the evening, we hear quite a lot of noise coming from the foliage and trees. My wife always refers to the sound as “night birds”. It is quite obvious that these are not birds, but what bugs or insects are responsible for the cacophony?
Where do you live? The answer may be different depending on the answer to that question.
It certainly depends! - where I live, a lot of loud chirping noises from trees at night come from frogs.
Impossible to tell without much more information. Roosting birds like starlings and blackbirds can keep up a chatter through the night. Other noises could be katydids, crickets, or frogs.
We have an owl or two in the neighbourhood. They are famously night birds.
Could be bats. There are a lot more bats out there than people think.
That might be a possibility in some areas, but probably not for “a lot of noise” coming from trees in the US. The calls bats make while foraging are mostly ultrasonic and above the range of human hearing. They may make audible calls while flying or at roosts, but I’m not aware of any species that roosts in large numbers in trees in the US, and in any case they wouldn’t be roosting at night.
Flying squirrels are quite talkative at night. They make a high-pitched chirp-like sound.
In Southern California mocking birds will sing all night long–or at least they used to. Now I don’t hear them as much. When I first lived on the Colombian Caribbean coast I heard this sound outside my house at night which for months I thought was gas pipes, but eventually discovered was “sapos,” or frogs, even though it wasn’t near any water.
I’m in Texas, and the noise from the trees at night is almost deafening during summer months. My house is surrounded by large trees, and if you open a door in the evening you can’t hear the TV. The noise here is cicadas.
My night-time Texas noise is mainly frogs and toads. The cicadas get lively in the daytime, but there haven’t been many around for a few years.
This year mockingbirds nested in a large gardenia bush near my bedroom’s patio door and frequently chattered all night, but I blamed my neighbor’s intrusive never-turned-off “security” light.
We have an occasional visit from an owl, but the most regular night-bird is a yellow-crowned night heron. Fortunately he doesn’t make noise as he goes about his business, but will squawk loudly and fly up onto the fence if we let the dog out when he’s present. It’s a toss-up as to who gets more freaked out - the dog or the heron.
Around Chicago this time of year, the katydids are prominent. Usually a 2 note repetitive sound, with the second slightly lower. ACK-ack. And last night the crickets were really going at it.
Up in Michigan where we vacation, a couple of whippoorwills have moved in. Now those are truly night birds. But you wouldn’t mistake it for anything else. And the barred owls always crack me up gabbling back and forth among themselves. But that poor whippoorwill, just sitting there screaming out, “I’m horny! I’m horny!” several times a minute for several hours straight…
In southeastern Wisconsin, where we are, I believe the cicadas and crickets make most of the noise. We do have bats and owls, but not sitting all around in the bushes and trees. Frogs can make quite a bit of noise, but we are not near the water. Thanks for the ideas.
I’m just south of you, and I’m pretty sure the cicadas tend to shut up after the sun goes down.
Tree frogs are a possibility, and can be surprisingly loud.
Pick a noise, above. Cicadas and a few others mixed in.
All sorts of Cicada noises with pics to identify, below (and see comments for shortcuts to some notable ones!)
If nothing else, go down the rabbit hole and save some great, relaxing videos.
A few examples of sounds of tree frogs, from videos taken in Wisconsin:
Nighthawk maybe? I’ve seen and heard a few of those guys here in eastern Nebraska. They really like an intersection between a street and railroad close to my house. They seem to prefer long open spaces with street lights that attract insects. Fun birds to watch. They remind me a little of swallows and martins.
Does the sound stay stationary or does it move?
Our cottage “night bird” is an actual bird: a whip-poor-will. They’re really cool sounding for the first few minutes, but the novelty wears off when you’re still awake at 3AM because the bastard is perched on your roof.
I pulled an all-nighter once studying for a midterm final back in college in northern Ohio. I listened to a Robin sing all night long.
UGH! I love birds but a whippoorwill at night will drive you crazy!! We had one close to the cabin for a while one summer. No one could sleep. “whipper will, whipper will, whipper will” all night long. Very annoying.
Other than that bird, up north here on a summer night, you are more apt to hear frogs, crickets, and owls. Also, what we humans consider morning and the birds consider morning in the summer are two different things. The robins, chickadees, etc are singing by 4:30am.