BS: Black Bird Singing in the Dead of Night

Subject: BS: Black Bird Singing in the Dead of Night
From: the lemonade lady
Date: 19 Mar 04 - 10:01 AM

I woke up this morning at 04:41 to the sound of a black bird singing merrily in the beech tree outside my house. Funny I thought, it's not day light? I looked out of the window and saw the sky was dark, a howling gail, heavy rain, orange light from the street and this little bird singing it's little heart out. Do we confuse the birds with all our street lighting or have they always done this at this time of year and I'm too tired to notice?

Sal

Subject: RE: BS: Black Bird Singing in the Dead of Night
From: GUEST,MMario
Date: 19 Mar 04 - 10:09 AM

I was once told birds see different frequencies then do humans - and some days that appear to us to be dark and dreary are quite light to them. FWIW-YMMV

Subject: RE: BS: Black Bird Singing in the Dead of Night
From: Dave Bryant
Date: 19 Mar 04 - 10:16 AM

You are sure it was a blackbird - Robins are the usual nightime singers and people often mistake them for nightingales.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Bird Singing in the Dead of Night
From: Ben Dover
Date: 19 Mar 04 - 11:04 AM

You sure it wasn't LSD?

Subject: RE: BS: Black Bird Singing in the Dead of Night
From: Chief Chaos
Date: 19 Mar 04 - 11:51 AM

For us its usually a mockingbird / catbird.
They have a veried repetoire and can be quite talented.
Unfortunately this one seems to have learned all of the car alarms in the general vicinity.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Bird Singing in the Dead of Night
From: Joybell
Date: 19 Mar 04 - 06:04 PM

Here Willie Wagtails and Magpies sing all night in the late Winter and the Spring when the moon is bright. The same moon is just as bright at other times, but loving is not on their minds to the same degree.
                Joy

Subject: RE: BS: Black Bird Singing in the Dead of Night
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 19 Mar 04 - 06:46 PM

We have a blackbird nesting very near by - it was in the hedge until next door cut it down over the winter. It's obviously come back to nest again and found another site close by. It sings at stupid times in the morning too, almost exactly an hour before I see any sign of dawn.

It was magical to walk to Easter dawn Mass and have the whole world silent (no mean feat in London)except for the sound of a blackbird greeting the re-creation of the new day.

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: Black Bird Singing in the Dead of Night
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 19 Mar 04 - 06:59 PM

Now, roosters are supposed to crow at the break of dawn, but some of them crow whenever they feel like it. For many years, I lived with a small farm on the property, and the roosters would start crowing when it was still dark. One night, a rooster broke me up in the middle of a beautiful dream with a song in it. One that had never been written. At first I was irritated to be wakened, but quickly came to my senses, grabbed a pen and wrote the first few lines of a song on a pad I kept by my bed. After muttering a few choice words about the rooster, I drifted back into sleep, and got several more lines to the song..

No, it wasn't about a handsome rooster..

Jerry

Subject: RE: BS: Black Bird Singing in the Dead of Night
From: LadyJean
Date: 19 Mar 04 - 11:13 PM

Says the lady who sleeps with cats, birds start singing well before the sun rises.
Many years ago, I was camping at St. Mary's Citye Maryland, across the road from some roosters who crowed all night. I spent much of that night, thinking of one of my mother's favorite recipes, Chicken Maryland.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Bird Singing in the Dead of Night
From: katlaughing
Date: 20 Mar 04 - 12:36 AM

Jerry, I'll bet it was about a randsome hooster instead, wasn't it!?**bg**

And I thought this was a tribute thread to the Beatles.:-)

Subject: RE: BS: Black Bird Singing in the Dead of Night
From: the lemonade lady
Date: 20 Mar 04 - 11:20 AM

Paul McC must have had one near by to have written a song about it. I go to Liverpool a lot, but can't say I've heard one there. Then again Schantie has got double glazing. Seagulls first thing, I love that.


Sal

Subject: RE: BS: Black Bird Singing in the Dead of Night
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 20 Mar 04 - 01:12 PM

If you could talk blackbird you'd probably have heard that rather than "singing merrily", he was bellowing at the top of his voice complaining about the noise and the bright lights.

"I don't believe it. Can't a bird get a nights sleep around this place..." Sort of Victor Merledrew style.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Bird Singing in the Dead of Night
From: Les from Hull
Date: 20 Mar 04 - 01:30 PM

Seagulls first thing indeed. The only thing wrong with Whitby is those bloody gulls calling out for 'Eric', whoever he is.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Bird Singing in the Dead of Night
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 20 Mar 04 - 01:50 PM

Whitby without the seagulls doesn't bear thinking about.

I wrote a song about it the last time I was up there, and the seagulls sneaked into almost every verse. (Whitby coming home)

Subject: RE: BS: Black Bird Singing in the Dead of Night
From: Ed.
Date: 20 Mar 04 - 02:44 PM

For what it's worth, Paul McCartney wrote 'Blackbird' as a response to the way in which Black women were treated during the civil rights problems in the USA in the late 1960s

Subject: RE: BS: Black Bird Singing in the Dead of Night
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 20 Mar 04 - 04:24 PM

Maybe that was one of the meanings. But images in songs mean lots of things at the same time. Just as images in real ife suggest all kinds of things - but that doesn't stop them also meaning themselves.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Bird Singing in the Dead of Night
From: Ed.
Date: 20 Mar 04 - 04:59 PM

Fair point, McGrath.

I have an ever growing collection of songs that mean something to me in ways the author could never have imagined

Subject: RE: BS: Black Bird Singing in the Dead of Night
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 20 Mar 04 - 05:22 PM

"...songs that mean something to me in ways the author could never have imagined."

That might be a basis for a good thread up the music end of the Cat some time.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Bird Singing in the Dead of Night
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 21 Mar 04 - 08:40 AM

Stupid bloody kookaburras (aka. Laughing Jackasses) also laugh their stupid bloody heads off well before dawn.

A chorus of raucous laughter before dawn @ a folk festival is Not On. Tho being a water-drinker, I didn't wake with a headache & dry throat (conversely, the non-water drinkers might have slept thru the racket).
Joybell, I'd prefer your beautuful Willie Wagtails & Magpies singing anyday (night).

sandra

Subject: RE: BS: Black Bird Singing in the Dead of Night
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 21 Mar 04 - 09:06 AM

At festivals, it isn't always the bloody kookaburras who laugh their heads off before dawn. Some nights are just so good, it's impossible to stop and I've lost count of the times I've seen the dawn come in whilst still laughing with friends.

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: Black Bird Singing in the Dead of Night
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 21 Mar 04 - 09:29 AM

Yeah, I think I've heard that. Gve me a kookaburra any bleary morning when I'm trying to get some kip...

Subject: RE: BS: Black Bird Singing in the Dead of Night
From: Joybell
Date: 21 Mar 04 - 05:31 PM

Funny thing, Les, our seagulls are all called "Eric" too!
Willie Wagtails are called "Pretty-Pretty".
Cockies are called "Jaaack!!".
Sheep are "Mer" I think probably short for "Mervin" or "Myrtle". Joy

Subject: RE: BS: Black Bird Singing in the Dead of Night
From: Dave Bryant
Date: 22 Mar 04 - 07:26 AM

LtS laughing in the Dead of Night ? - just the thought of it gives me the horrors !

Subject: RE: BS: Black Bird Singing in the Dead of Night
From: the lemonade lady
Date: 22 Mar 04 - 08:39 AM

I've just remembered something else too. If you go to Upton on Severn folk festival (Mayday BH) there are nightingales singing in the woodland at the campsite. Really, there are!

Sal

Subject: RE: BS: Black Bird Singing in the Dead of Night
From: TheBigPinkLad
Date: 22 Mar 04 - 03:28 PM

It's crows here in Victoria, BC. I have a big oak tree in the yard where they roost and when the racoons come home from a night on the town they caw at them for ages. I'd take blackbirds anytime.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Bird Singing in the Dead of Night
From: Chief Chaos
Date: 22 Mar 04 - 04:53 PM

Once went camping on the C&O Canal (runs along the Potomac River from DC to Frederick MD) with the Boy Scouts. One of the points of the trip was to try new and/or unusual camping methods. Since the weather was warm we thought why not? and tried camping in hammocks among the trees. I and the others tried laying the sleeping bags in the hammocks and then trying to crawl into them, and then tried getting in the bag first and then getting in the hammock. Whichever way we experienced and observed some of the funniest gymnastics routines never seen on TV. Usually they ended up with the participant on the ground below the hammock. We were laughing so hard and long into the night that the Scout Masters nearly threw us out. I know it's thread creep but the birds didn't get any sleep that night and couldn't be heard over the laughter.

Subject: RE: BS: Black Bird Singing in the Dead of Night
From: clueless don
Date: 23 Mar 04 - 08:55 AM

Ah, Chief Chaos, I once went Boy Scout summer camping on the C&O Canal (near Seneca) back in the 60's. When I woke up the next morning, there was scarcely a square inch of my arms, neck and face that didn't have mosquito bites!

Getting back to the topic, the pre-dawn bird activity around here is usually, in my experience, Mockingbirds singing and Woodpeckers drumming. In the "pre-spring" (late February, early March) the dawn usually brings the Cardinals, sounding like video games.

Don

Subject: RE: BS: Black Bird Singing in the Dead of Night
From: Chief Chaos
Date: 23 Mar 04 - 04:37 PM

Well, our gulls don't call Eric, but there was a species of frog that used to call "dave, dave, dave, dave". Made me pretty paranoid!

Subject: RE: BS: Black Bird Singing in the Dead of Night
From: Joybell
Date: 23 Mar 04 - 06:02 PM

We have Banjo frogs. Also called Pobblebonks. They really sound just like banjos. They don't play bluegrass, thank the Lord, - more like someone playing the phrase "Pobblebonk" over and over.
Other frogs - Ewings Tree Frogs - do a call just like someone whistling a dog. Must be hard on dog owners. Joy

Subject: RE: BS: Black Bird Singing in the Dead of Night
From: Chief Chaos
Date: 24 Mar 04 - 10:00 AM

Funny that Paul should choose to write a song to recognise the plight of the African American women during the civil rights movement using terms that are now considered derogatory (to the PC types anyway).

Somehow

African American of the female persuasion singing in the dead of night

doesn't have the same ring though.