I know what you mean. We live very close to the everglades and the sound of the frogs chanting on certain evenings is wonderful. But every winter there's a bird who screams all night. In three years havent been able to locate it, but it returns every winter. Keep me posted if you find out more about it!

I have a feeling it was a migrating bird that got lost from its flock and was trying to find them. Probably some sort of magpie or crow, it was that kind of call. Two long calls, then a series of short calls. VERY loud.

Might be night herons or screech owls - there are also nighthawks...

It probably wasn't as loud as a Sand Hill Crane though. I found a great book at Sam's Club that had over 100 birds with pictures and descriptions, and when you pressed a button, it would play the call of each bird.

cardinals are among the first up. 2 notes, then a series of 3 to 7 notes. No magpies in Fla

Come to think of it, it might have been a screech owl. I had forgotten that they do that series of call, whistles and trills.

Not a cardinal. My cockatiels used to have a cardinal friend who would sit outside in the oak tree and talk to them. "pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty" I know what they sound like. There is one chirping outside my apartment right now.

Just talked to my neighbor. He heard it at 3 a.m. when he got home from work, so it was definitely a screech owl. They aren't as scary sounding as barn owls, though. OMG! My grandma had one in her barn, and it used to scare the beejeezus out of me when I was little.

But the animal sound that scared me the most when I was little was a wildcat. If you've never heard one, they sound like a baby crying. When I was probably about 3 or 4, I heard one at my grandmother's house and I was begging my mother to go out and find the baby that was crying. She kept telling me it was a wildcat, but I was crying hysterically, swearing there was a baby out there. Give it a listen.

Well, Mr. Redbird is out there waking up the neighborhood this morning. He's usually the first one up, like the birdie alarm clock. He's been calling for an hour, now the others are starting to chime in. He's the only one who calls in the morning. Now the others are waking up too. There goes my mocker.

I haven't seen a lot of blue jays around here, in fact, not any. That's sort of strange. Maybe they haven't come back yet.

Evidently, this redbird thinks that when I turn on my light in the morning, it's time to get up and start singing. I hope when the leaves fill out on the trees, he won't be able to see it. I have to get up early to get work from one of my clients, but I like to go back to sleep. No chance of that, because Mr. Cardinal is out there screaming his head off, then he wakes up all the other birds and they chime in.