I needed a title for the post and “Blackbird singing in the dead of night,” seemed just as good as any. I took this photograph of a Melodious Blackbird at midday, though. We often heard it while we were out on the deck at the Rancho. I’m not really sure if it does sing at night but almost every day in Costa Rica I awoke to the sounds of a bird singing its heart out at about 4 AM which I still consider night. On my previous visits to the Osa Peninsula in Costa Rica, the 4 AM alarm clock was the sound of the Howler Monkeys. Howlers don’t live at the higher elevations in Central Costa Rica but there were plenty of bird alarm clocks. I recorded one in particular on my Merlin app at 4AM but I haven’t been able to positively identify which bird was singing although the Melodious Blackbird did appear on the list of birds recorded that morning, so I’ll stick with the title. This bird has lots of new pin feathers, seen under its beak and along side its beak as white keratin sheaths.