f u birds

I mentioned in an earlier post how I could commiserate with bird lovers as they got angry at squirrels stealing their precious bird food. But now I am changing my tune. (Yes, the pun is intended!)

I hate birds. Hate 'em! Mainly because they are the loudest little pests in the world. Do you know what time they start chirping in the morning? 3:38 AM!!! There is nothing worth singing about at 3:38 AM. Trust me on this! That's when the little guy starts. I can sort of tune him out but there is no ignoring the big guy when he chimes in at 4:18 AM. 

I could understand a few chirps, tweets and coos just to let your neighbors know you are awake but do they need to sing a whole friggin' opera? 

I looked to see if there was a reason why they needed to wake me up every day, thinking that if there was a really good reason, maybe, just maybe I could tolerate it more. The closest thing I found to an answer was this:

One reason may be that dawn is the best time for sound to travel, because there is little wind and less other noise and disturbance. Songs broadcast at dawn can be 20 times as effective as that broadcast at midday. And this is a time when birds can't do much else. Light intensity is low, making it difficult for them to hunt and forage. Low temperatures keep their insect prey on the ground. By singing at dawn, when their energy reserves are low after the night, male birds may be telling females that they are nevertheless still fit for breeding. A male singing lustily is demonstrating that he has spare energy in abundance. Dawn may be a good time to sing, but there is likely to be a lot of vocal competition. So there is an advantage in singing at a different time of day, particularly when two different species have similar songs: Two birds of the Californian chaparral, the wrentit and the Bewick's wren, share the same habitat, and also have similar songs. But they manage to alternate their singing bouts so that they are never in direct conflict.   The Berwick’s wren starts the session in the morning and dominates the airways for the first hour. The wrentit stays quiet to avoid competition, but gets his turn sing in the second hour, after which the Berwick’s wren starts again. And so this astonishing sharing of the stage goes on. Bird song travels best at night. The few night songsters, like the nightingale, may dominate the airways for hours with their beautiful songs.

Okay, I swore to never use this blog as a outlet for venting about irrelevant crap but that was before I became cranky Nikki who hasn't gotten a good night's sleep all week. Let's just hope that the birds are going to take the weekend off!