Why is a bird chirping at night?
Also asked, why is there a bird chirping at 2am?
We can hear birds singing at night (2am) in trees adjacent to the house in mid-December. The main purpose of singing is to attract a mate and defend a territory. Robins are one of the few birds that hold a territory throughout the winter so continue to sing when the majority of other birds have stopped.
Keeping this in consideration, is it normal for birds to sing at night?
Apart from owls, our other nocturnal songsters, corncrakes, nightjars and nightingales are all migratory birds with a short and well defined song period during the spring and summer months. As well as the true nocturnal species, reed and sedge warblers among others, sing extensively during the night.
Why these birds are chirping the middle of the night is a more challenging question. One popular theory among ornithologists is that most species that chirp at night do so for territorial reasons. This seems to be particularly true of mockingbirds.