I'm ashamed to admit it but at first I thought it was a catbird, or maybe even a thrasher. I decided right away that it was not a mockingbird...the phrases were not right. Not mimics of other birdsong, more like...audible punctuation. I finally got serious and compared recordings from the internet and have arrived at one conclusion:

it's a yellow breasted chat. I guess it never came to my attention until now because there are so many other competing grunts, snorts, hoots, whistles and warbles around these parts during the daylight hours.

I certainly have had ample opportunity to sit and consider the notes and canter and so on because so far I don't think it ever stops to sleep. I've stuck my head out the door at 3 in the morning and it's still at it, perching, by my best guess,in the top of the big dead multiflora rosebush across the yard from the front steps. Earlier this spring, I killed out this giant and as many of its smaller progeny as I could find but the bird doesn't seem phased by the bare branches. Maybe it's got better acoustics or something from there. Whatever the case, it likes this spot right on up to first light and then some.

But it's soothing and eerie at the same time, to quietly step out in the dark and listen to those mumbled short little syllables and chopped phrases when there isn't anything else stirring. Ok, maybe if you are there long enough and the mosquitoes don't run you back inside, you will catch a shrew squeak in the leaves or a flying squirrel piping overhead but that's really it except for that one bird. In fact, the silence makes it sound so LOUD. You might not even notice it in the daytime but here lately at night it is THE SOUND. At least until tree cricket/katydid season, when I will have new favorites to post about.