Noisy bird....Help!

Hi everyone! I'm new and just popped in for some help in figuring out what this noisy bird is! I don't know anything about birds at all, I could point out a crow and a seagull and anything else is beyond me. I live in Scotland and right outside my front door there's a wooded area. Always had lots of birds (and sometimes some owls) in it. The birds have always tweeted and twittered away in the early hours and it's never bothered us....until now! A new bird seems to have moved in and it's driving everyone crazy. It wakes my entire family  (2 adults 4 kids under 7) every single morning at 4am and it doesn't let up for hours on end! It is not a pretty birdsong.....it sound like an alarm clock! Like an actual electronic sound. It goes beep beep four times like a half second apart. 30 seconds quiet, then again and again. We haven't managed to spot it yet as there are a lot of birds out there, but it's very close as it is so loud. Maybe if someone could shed some light as to what it could be I could spot it, if I see the pretty little bird it may not drive me so crazy as I doubt I would be actually able to make it move along, though if I could....all the better! Sorry it isn't much to go on and it may seem odd to bird lovers that it's driving us so crazy but it really is....many thanks for any help!

  • Hi MrsB, any chance you could get a recording and post it here?

  • I can record it as a voice note on my blackberry, but I'm not sure it's a format you'd be able to listen to on a PC?! I can surely try.

  • I'm not sure if that'll work or not, there are others here who will probably know... You could record it as a video (doesn't matter if there's nothing to see as long as there's sound!) and put it on YouTube, the forum can definitely deal with YouTube links.

  • I was wondering if it could be a Greenfinch, we have a male one who sits in the tree in our garden repeating the same note over and over again. Listen to the attached link and the note I'm on about is the 3 individual notes after the initial trilling song and the very last note made.

    sounds.bl.uk/.../022M-W1CDR0001389-1700V0

  • Of course Starlings make all sorts of strange noises and can be pretty loud,remember when there were reports years ago of them imitating the old Trim phones maybe the modern Starlings imitate more electronic sounds

  • Hi, MrsB, like you this is my first post on the forum (Gulp!). I was thinking about your description of the call and the location close to woodlands; could it be a Nuthatch that you were hearing? There call is repetitive and quite strident. If you go to the Bird Identifier section and listen to the Nuthatch recording, that might help.

  • Hi,

    Thanks for having a go everyone, I did have a listen to all the suggested birds and it isn't quite the same as any. I had found myself searching the house for some obscure toy the children had set an alarm on for days before we realised it was a bird! It really does sound....electronic! (at the risk of sounding totally barmy!). I tried to record it this morning but it was so windy when played back it was completely drowned out, so I'll have another go tomorrow morning. Thanks again!

  • A long time after the question was posed, I'm afraid I don't have an answer but I definitely have the same problem! I'm usually up very early and the last few mornings, half an hour or so before dawn, I've heard a repeated bird call which I would describe much as you have. In fact, a Google search on my description brought me straight here.

    I live in west Cornwall, about half a mile from the sea. The call is coming from an area of marshy grassland between us and the tall sand dunes of Carbis Bay. The call always consists of 4 beeps of about a second each. To my ear the note descends very slightly with each repetition. It does sound like an amplified electronic alarm with the battery running down! After each iteration of the 4 beeps, there is a pause of maybe 30 seconds, then it starts again.

    I know bird calls can be very deceptive but this does sound like a larger bird. There is a good deal of power being used.

    We have a lot of corvids in the area, though the crows, jackdaws, rooks, ravens and pies are around all day and I never hear it then. We also, naturally, have a lot of seabirds around here, and a good diversity of wildfowl. I have only heard this call pre-dawn.

    I'm going to try my best to get a good recording of this. If I succeed I will post a link here.

    I have to know!

  • Hope you get a recording, Sarah. We like a challenge but trying to ID bird calls from a description is difficult - for me anyway.

  • Thank you for the response, Tony. I wasn't sure if an older thread like this would still be active.

    I was up too late this morning but I'm now on a mission and will certainly post again here when (refusing to say 'if') I get a recording of it. This may take some time ...