sleep

[jose]

hello.

does anyone know what the birds sleeping patterns are? do they need a minimum rest? if so how long?

many thanks

[Michael Frankis]

Hi Jose,

This can be a hard one to tell, as keeping an eye on birds at night isn't too easy! :gn:

It varies a lot from species to species, most songbirds are diurnal and sleep for the whole of the night, but even among them, there's Nightingales and others which will spend the whole night singing.

Lots of waders are at least partly nocturnal, some (e.g. Golden Plover) are more active at night than during the day - there's some evidence up here that Golden Plovers fly quite a long way from daytime roosts to feeding grounds in some odd places including football pitches in the centre of Newcastle (about 10km from the nearest Golden Plover flocks in the daytime!). A lot of ducks are largely nocturnal too - all those Wigeon that you see dozing and squabbling (and sometimes feeding) on a lake have been out all night grazing in fields.

How long do they need to sleep for? - I don't know! Visit a Starling roost at night, and it is never silent, there's always some noise going on, but I suppose most of the individuals must be asleep :gn: most of the time.

Another interesting question is what happens north of the Arctic Circle with 24-hour daylight in the summer. I remember reading that birds do still have quiet spells when they roost, at funny times through the day like mid-afternoon :gn: Unfortunately I can't remember the exact details.

Michael

[jose]

thank you Micheal. you are always very helpfull.