I don’t hear the little bastards all night, and now they’re chirping like crazy. Y?
Just a guess, but I’d say it’s because they’re asleep at night, and wake up at dawn.
The reason for most bird song is to establish territories and/or attract mates. The bird song at dawn is remind all the other birds that " I am still here and don’t move into my patch". Round here , because we have very good street lamps they begin to sing a full hour before the real dawn.
As a parrot owner. . .
Yeah, dawn and early dusk are the big social hours. In between is foraging, nest building, preening and nap time, and they are quiet at night because of predators.
would the sun have the courage and hope to face another day without that sweet music?
This is sort of a side note, not intended as a hijack, but I often hear the local birds after I’ve gone to bed at night. I find it rather bizarre to be hearing them chirping away five or six hours after sundown. I guess they’ve become urbanized, or something. Makes me wonder if I should be ashamed that birds have a more active nightlife than I do.
This is called the “Dawn Chorus,” and like Rayne Man suggested, it’s likely related to advertising (Hey, I’m on MY territory, it’s occupied, I need a mate). And, as capybara says, it’s likely safer than at night. But any time you advertize your location to a potential mate or quarrelous neighbor, you also advertize to a potential predator. With so many voices singing at once, perhaps this helps to reduce the likelihood that you become someone’s breakfast.
It takes a bit of energy to sing and researchers are finding that the amount of body mass reserves a bird has after surviving a cold night is related to the amount of singin’ in the morning (Thomas, R.J. & Cuthill, I.C. (2002) Body mass regulation and the daily singing routines of European robins. *Animal Behaviour *63, 285-295.). If a bird is able to predict the coming night’s temperature (based on the preceding nights), then they can adjust their dusk body mass to accomodate to their energetic needs. When they end up with higher body mass in the morning (when they’re fat and happy), they can spend more time singing. When night temperatures take a plunge and morning body mass is low, then birds gotta eat. You can’t sing when your mouth is full of worms. For European Robins, at least.
Rob Thomas also found that the size of a bird’s eye can predict when they join the chorus: those with bigger eyes relative to body size sing earlier: Thomas, R.J., Szekely, T, Cuthill, I.C., Harper, D.G.C., Newson, S.E., Frayling, T.D., & Wallis, P.D. (2002) Eye size in birds and the timing of song at dawn. Proceedings of the Royal Society, B. 269, 831-837
Davebear, birds have also surprised me with their nocturnal activities. A grad student in our lab radio-tagged Laughing Gulls and found that some of them came to Atlantic City Airport at 1 or 2 in the morning. This was during the fledging stage and I guess that Mom and Dad were trying to meet the incessant, raucous FEED ME! demands of their hungry hungry chicks. Very unexpected.
Here’s a dawn chorus from New Zealand. Pretty cool!
Kildeer feed in the dead of night at my worksite. So do Black Phoebe’s ( in an artificial setting, open air but heavily lit with floodlights which attract insect, plus they have nice five-foot high bollards from which to fly-catch from ).
And let’s not forget Northern Mockingbirds, which are delightful if you’re a graveyard worker like me, but demons from hell if you’re trying to sleep at night near a horny male ( my father absolutely loathed them when he was living near one in CA 
). Suckers can ( and will ) sing for half the night or longer.
- Tamerlane
You mean the sun will appear even if they don’t chirp?
My favorite night singing bird is the whiporwill. Nothing says ‘summer’ like a warm night with a whiporwill singing at a distance. Ahhhhhh.
Picture and audio:
Whip-poor-will Caprimulgus vociferus
Peace.
So much for being afraid of night predators.
I was under the impression that many birds chirp in the morning because the air is cooler and sound travels further in cool air.
David Attenbourough went over this on one of his many television shows.
Why do birds, suddenly appear, when I’m trying, to sleep…
Bastards.
Black Phoebes? That’s wild, I wouldn’t have thought a diurnal insectivore as being active at night, but I guess a giant bug light is too attractive to pass up. Cool!
Mahaloth, now that you brought up Attenborough, I think it’s safe to say that atmospheric effects can contribute to the dawn chorus. I think the question “Why do birds sing at dawn” brings up levels of effect - distal and proximal causes to behavior. A distal cause would be that birds sing to reproduce (gain territory, mates) while a proximal cause to why did that bird sing last night might be energetics (for that species, hence my “For European Robins” comment) or amtospheric or both. But you’re right, atmospheric explanations should be considered (and I should have remembered it, damn my brain).
So, do American robins sing? All I ever see the little buggers do is peck the ground for worms.
And don’t get me started about that mockingbird outside my mom’s house. I’ve gotten up many a time at 4:00(before daylight) and shot him/her with a hose. It didn’t do much good.
Just like me, they long to be…close to you
Disclaimer: I don’t long to be close to you, but the Carpenters reference was too good to pass by. :rolleyes:
Visit http://www.mbr-pwrc.usgs.gov/id/framlst/i7610id.html and then click on “song” and “call”. They’ll probably sound familiar, even if you don’t associate them with the robin.
I heard a robin singing at 3 am this morning , almost three hours before dawn. I could also hear another one in the distance. As I said above this is probably due the the street lighting making the birds think it is daybreak.