It happens every year around this time end Nov, Dec and maybe into early
part of January too I used to think it was mainly in cyclonic mild weather
that brought it on, but recently its been quite dry, cold and frosty so it
cant be just in the mild weather. There's loads of this song around west
London here too, Ealing to be precise but you can hear them in other suburbs
too. They call from tree to tree and its quite lovely song and very
noticeable because its night.

Some years ago when this was ocurring I was out late at night 2am and I saw
one of these birds singing, size of a Robin yes with a white breast thats
all I could see, they perch high up in street pavement trees and its dark so
its very hard to see them in sodium lighting. I thought they were
nightingales but sems people arent going much for that.

I put a message up once on a birds newsgroup and a few other bird forum
sites but all that came to fruition from that was basically the same thats
been said here, i.e., that is birds (Robins more likely) that are loosing
the time of day and think its dawn, which it is not of course. Other
explanations are the increased road lighting these days to confuse the poor
little peepers, but I dunno. Yes and the territorial aspect of Robins at
this time of year is very feasible.

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