Being woken up by the occasional bird chirping is something that many budgie owners may go through, but you may become concerned if this happens too often.
This article looks into why your budgie is chirping at night.
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Why is my budgie chirping at night?
Your budgie is not nocturnal, it is diurnal, it sleeps at night and is up during the day.
Because of this, the bird shouldn’t be up at night and shouldn’t be chirping through the night, but this sometimes happens.
Here is why your bird is chirping at night:
Noise/light pollution:
While budgies are nocturnal animals they will stay up if there is noise pollution or light pollution in the area.
These birds, in the wild, have no disturbances so they will sleep peacefully through the night.
Birds who are disturbed at night, either by light pollution or noise pollution, won’t be able to sleep and will chirp through the night.
What to do:
Getting rid of the noise pollution or the light pollution will get the bird to sleep peacefully through the night.
Getting rid of the noise or light pollution may entail switching off household lighting, which may be keeping your bird up, or, keeping the bird in a room far away from any noises.
If you can’t remove the light then you can cover the bird’s cage so no light can be seen by the bird.
Make sure no sounds, like the toothbrush buzzing, the radio on, the shower running, or the hairdryer blowing can be heard by the bird.
Adding a white noise machine in your birds room may also help to get the bird to sleep and keep the bird asleep
The bird is stressed:
Stress can be another contributing factor as to why your budgie is chirping at night
The bird may become stressed because it senses a threat in the area, or, the bird may be stressed for other reasons.
What to do:
Finding out what is threatening your bird, and removing the threat, will get the bird to stop chirping.
Things like your domestic pets may be threatening or spooking your bird.
Hormones:
While budgies need to get a good amount of sleep, and need to get enough sleep at night, too much sleep can cause issues.
One of the issues that too much sleep can cause is chirping at night.
These birds need about 10-12 hours of sleep every day, but not too much.
If they get around 15 hours of sleep a day then this can trigger an increase in their hormonal activity and overstimulate them.
This added stimulation can cause the bird to get loud and start chirping at night
What to do:
To keep your bird’s hormones normal make sure that your budgie only gets 10 to 12 hours of daylight per day.
If the days are long, and there are more than 10-12 hours of sunlight in a day, then you can cover the budgie’s cage after 10-12 hours.
Loneliness:
Ideally, budgies are meant to be kept in flocks, or at least with one other bird.
If your bird is kept alone then it may get upset, or depressed, and may start chirping at night.
What to do:
You have the option of giving the bird more toys to play with and keeping the TV or radio on to keep the budgie entertained and keep it from feeling lonely.
You also have the option of getting the budgie a friend to keep it from being lonely.
Another option is giving the bird away and allowing it to live somewhere with other budgies.
If you enjoyed this article then you may also be interested in other bird related articles. Here are some articles that you may be interested in: Why Is My Budgie’s Tail Shivering?, Why Does My Bird Bite Me Softly?, Baby Conure Biting Hard, Why Has My Budgie Stopped Eating His Seed, What Does It Mean When A Bird Pecks You?, Why Does My Bird Scream When I Play Music?, Why Does My Bird Bite My Fingers?
