The purpose of this thread is threefold:
1. To discuss and theorise why birds (initially around my area) are waking up much earlier than usual.
2. To discover if there are other examples of this happening either here in the Uk or in other countries.
and, if no reasonable explanation can be found,
3. To create awareness of yet another strange alteration to the 'natural way' of things.
Since shortly before Xmas 2010, I noticed the birds in my area were (and still are) all waking up between 1am and 3am. From around 1am, they begin to
wake up and by 3am they are all tweeting and chirping away like it's daylight.
Although now used to hearing the birds chirping loudly at my window as I go to bed, this initially created a kind of "jetlag" in me, making it
difficult to sleep because my ears were telling me it was time to get up!
In 38 years of living deep in the countryside, I have never known this to happen to such an extreme, other than on clear nights with particularly
bright and full Moons or during the middle of Summer. Neither of these explanations apply here, of course.
It would've been nice to attribute this to the "SuperMoon", but it's been going on
every morning without fail since around November - December
of last year, so I can only assume that this has nothing to do with the Moon whatsoever.
All the streetlights in the area are fairly old and haven't been replaced or altered as far as I'm aware, so it's likely not them.
In fact, nothing new has happened that I know of to warrant making
all the birds around my home wake up
well before dawn. There doesn't
seem to be any change in the light conditions, or at least, not those that can be picked up by human eyes anyway.
The
only thing I can think of that may be a factor, is if they are starving due to having just experienced a particularly long and hard Winter,
causing them to arise earlier than normal due to hunger. I'm far from being an expert on birds however so this is purely assumption based upon little
knowledge.
For your additional information, I currently live in Suffolk, East Anglia, UK, and have lived in this particular abode for just over two years.
So, anyone else having problems with the birds waking up earlier than usual during Winter?
Anyone else (ideally from the UK countryside also) who can attest to this being a common phenomena?
Any ornithologists present who may be able to shed light onto the seemingly unusual behaviour of these birds?
Thanks in advance,
OP
edit on 21-3-2011 by OptimisticPessimist because: (no reason given)