What bird sounds like a baby crying?

In Florida and southern Georgia, a loud, wailing cry from a marsh or swamp at night is most likely a Limpkin, a wading bird so famous for it that one of its old names is the crying bird. On a northern lake in late spring and summer, a long howl after dark is a Common Loon's wail. A wailing cry from a big tree in summer may be a young Red-tailed Hawk asking for food. And if a neighbor keeps peafowl, the peacock is a strong suspect.

Listen: the Limpkin, the crying bird

The Limpkin has been called the crying bird and the lamenting bird, and many of its other names imitate the call. The Nature Conservancy describes the male's wail as high-pitched, repeated and remarkably human when it wakes you in the middle of the night. Males have long, looping windpipes that make the sound possible, and they use it to claim a territory. A female sometimes answers with a softer groan, so a pair can produce a duet that does nothing for your sleep. The calling comes most often at night, and also at dawn and dusk, exactly when a strange cry is hardest to explain.

In the United States the Limpkin's home is peninsular Florida and the Okefenokee Swamp in southern Georgia, in freshwater marshes and swamps with tall reeds, and in mangroves. It eats mostly apple snails, so it lives where they do. That map is changing: reports from other parts of the country have been climbing since 2014 and picked up speed after 2022, with new populations outside the old range. If you get a look, it is a tall wading bird, 25 to 29 inches long, dark brown with white streaks, with long gray legs, a long neck and a heavy bill that curves down.

Other birds that wail

The loon's long call is actually named the wail. It has up to three notes and is often compared to a wolf's howl. Mates trade it back and forth across the water, and so do adults and chicks, to keep in touch or to find each other after being separated. Loons give the wail, the yodel and the tremolo more often at night than by day, and they are most vocal from mid-May to mid-June. In the United States, loons breed mainly in Alaska, the Great Lakes region, New York and New England, with a few pairs in Washington, Idaho, Montana and Wyoming. In winter they move to coasts and other open water as far south as southern Texas.

Young Red-tailed Hawks have a wailing klee-uk food cry that they give when their parents leave the nest. Eggs are laid in spring, the young start leaving the nest after 42 to 46 days, and fledging, which includes learning to fly and hunt, takes about ten weeks, so this crier is a summer sound. Red-tails like a mix of woods and fields with tall trees to perch in, but they also live on farmland, along highways and in cities, which is how a big tree near a house ends up hosting a hungry, complaining youngster.

If what you heard was a short, catlike mew from a hedge rather than a long cry, the cat page is a better fit.

When it is not a wild bird

Peafowl are not native birds, but where people keep them, they are loud. In a Nature Conservancy roundup of strange night noises, one resident compared the peacocks' calls to babies in distress played through an enormous microphone. The same article notes that wildlife officials regularly reassure people that the screams and cries in their backyards come from red foxes, not people in trouble.

How to tell which one you heard

• Where you are. A marsh or swamp in Florida or south Georgia: Limpkin. A large northern lake in late spring or summer: Common Loon. A tall tree in a park, a yard or along a road: a young Red-tailed Hawk.
• When you heard it. Limpkins call most at night and also at dawn and dusk. Loons wail more at night than by day, most of all from mid-May to mid-June. The young hawks' food cries belong to summer.
• Was there an answer? A Limpkin's wail may get a softer groan back from the female. A loon's wail is often answered by another loon across the water.
• Did it rattle? The Limpkin's wail has a rattling quality, and both sexes add staccato rattles. A loon's wail is a long, howling call of up to three notes.

If it calls again, hold up your phone and let Warble listen. It can name the Limpkin, the loon and the hawk; it identifies birds by sound, so a fox will leave it guessing.

Questions people ask

Warble is a game, not a field guide. Facts about birds on this page come from the sources above.