EPOW - Ecology Picture of the Week

The Bird That Sings At Night

Red-tailed Palm Thrush (Cichladusa ruficauda), Family Muscicapidae
Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo

Explanation:  I was awakened more than once in the darkness of early morning hours, in the humid tropics of central Africa, by a song so melodious and ethereal that I thought it was a mythical Siren beckoning me to my fate.  

I soon came to realized that I was hearing the amazingly diverse repertoire of a Red-tailed Palm Thrush, a relatively common bird of city and country alike.  

But here it was, singing so fervently in the dead of night.  Why?

Nocturnal bird song is poorly studied.  In one report (La 2011), at least 30% of North American birds sing at night, and of those, 70% are also active during the day.  

Perhaps night-singing avoids the invitation of daytime predators, or saves energy and enhances reproductive success, or maintains mate contact, or confers other benefits, as yet unknown.

As it turns out, there are indeed many birds that sing at night ... of course, those that first come to mind are owls, but there are also a surprising array of other songsters that pierce the dark with special songs.  

In the same study, Van La (2011) catalogued no less than 749 species of North American birds that sing at night!  I could find no such study or information on nocturnal songsters of the African tropics, however.  In a previous EPOW, we did explore another case in the Congo of the Senegal Coucal that first, but not for long, fooled me into thinking it was an owl calling at night.  

Back to my Red-tailed Palm Thrush, also called Rufous-tailed Palm Thrush (which has a rufous-colored tail, but it not a "true" thrush of the New World family Turdidae, nor is it a palm, for that matter):  

This is a member of the family Muscicapidae, the Old World flycatchers.  

I have encountered many members of this family in travels throughout Africa and Asia, but I do not recall hearing any others singing at night.  

So, I will leave you with the songs I had encountered that hot humid tropical night.

First, here are Rufous-tailed Palm Thrush songs I recorded in Kinshasa and Mbandaka, in western Democratic Republic of the Congo, during morning hours after sunrise.  Notice, that although they often consist of repeated phrases, they can be quite variable. 

And here are its sweet Siren songs I heard at night:

    

Information:
     La, V. T. 2012. Diurnal and noctural birds vocalize at night: a review. Condor 114(2):245-257.