What sort of bird is chirping outside my window at this hour of night?

[conuly]

No, seriously, any ideas?

Comments

[wodhaund.livejournal.com]

A very confused sparrow?

I occasionally hear titmice outside late at night. Never figured out why. Maybe they just talk in their sleep. XD

[conuly]

Google suggests it might be a mockingbird.

It's a very pretty sounding bird. It's also a very LOUD bird. By googling frantically and playing birdsongs to compare, though, I think I'm confusing it! I'm sure confusing me - I'm not sure which is which. (At one point, the computer and the bird were singing the same melody in unison.)

[wodhaund.livejournal.com]

(At one point, the computer and the bird were singing the same melody in unison.)

That is possibly the best thing I've read all day.

Well. All yesterday I suppose. Not much of today to read things yet.

[lizziey.livejournal.com]

If its repeating the birdsongs its hearing from your computer, almost definitely a mockingbird.

[conuly]

It wasn't repeating. The mockingbird outside and on the computer just happened to start a new song at the same time.

[lizziey.livejournal.com]

Ahhh ok.

[lady-angelina.livejournal.com]

No idea, sorry. =( But you're not the only one. I do occasionally hear a bird (or birds) out in the courtyard late at night where I live (it has lots of trees, so there are always birds singing at all hours, though mostly in the daytime). It sounds like a cross between a bat and a seagull, strangely enough, but I have no clue what that could be.

[conuly]

A cross between... a bat... and a seagull?

WTF?

[lady-angelina.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I know, right? XD; It's hard to explain, but the tone sounds screechy like a bat, but the tremolo (or ululation, for lack of a better word) sounds more like that of a seagull than a bat. It could well just be a bat, though.

[lauramcewan.livejournal.com]

A nightingale? ;)

[conuly]

Nightingales aren't native to the Americas (something I found out after I finally decided to look them up to find out how they sing - for such an inspirational bird, I was disappointed), though the "hermit thrush" is sometimes called the American Nightingale. It's no relation, but it has a pretty song (something I confirmed via wikipedia after my umpteenth reading of The Hermit Thrush Sings).

[feebeeglee.livejournal.com]

Mockingbird. Had one outside my window that kept me awake many times, the bastard.

Long, rambling, pretty songs though.

The most obnoxious birds I've dealt with I really couldn't be angry at. There was a nesting pair of sparrows that got VERY WORRIED every morning when the old tomcat I fed showed up on my stoop awaiting his breakfast. So they would perch on my windowsil and alarm-chirp every few seconds from dawn until I got up to feed him. I tried feeding him in the back but he still waited in the front. And of course getting up to feed him only cemented mt awakeness, so going back to sleep was rarely an option. But I couldn't blame the birds. I'd freak my ass right out if a huge predator showed up under my kids' window every morning.

[fjorab-teke.livejournal.com]

I chime in too with "it's probably a 'WTF it's 3am you crazy mockingbird!'"

If it's a song repeated 3-6 times and then switching to another and same repetition...there's your culprit.

[redbird]

Mockingbird is likely.

If anyone near you has bright lights on, it could be a robin. We have robins sing most of the night when Columbia leaves the lights on at the football field.

[sayga.livejournal.com]

Mocking bird, especially if he sings mostly at a full moon.

[ksol1460.livejournal.com]

We've had a midnight mockingbird here for a couple of weeks.

[queenlyzard.livejournal.com]

The annoying kind.