What sort of birds were these?

[NicoAndTheNiners]

This has been bugging me all day now. I was brought up in the country and like to think I know most fairly common birds.

I was stood in a car park late last night chatting to two friends. Car park is fairly rural, near a small wooded area, there's also a canal and a large pond nearby for idea of habitat.

There was the oddest noise ever. I'm struggling to describe it. Nearest I can come to is that it sounded like a squeaky wheel. But noise was high up and travelling about. It was nearly 11pm and pitch black. There's a few lights in the car park but we couldn't see anything.

We were there over 5 mins and the noise didn't stop once, was constant. Then two birds came overhead. We got a brief look at them. They seemed pale, maybe grey in colour. But hard to tell in the light. They were about the size of wood pigeons and possibly a similar shape. But looked lighter.

The time of day has puzzled me. As well as the odd noise. Sensible birds should be roosting. Definetely not owls and I really don't think they were any other bird of prey.

Seagulls? The bastards never sleep.

Gulls?
They often fly around at night. Could be juveniles.

X post. Great mings etc.

Sheesh. Minds.

Almost certainly a Heron!

Smaller than a heron.

I've just been listening to nocturnal bird sounds and it sounded most like a corncrake, but it's too early for them to be here according to the rsbp site.

Didn't sound anything like any gull I've ever heard and I don't think the wingspan was big enough either. Gulls have quite wide wings in proportion to their bodies and these were more wood pigeon shape

Oystercatchers, they fly at night and make a peeping noise

Hawks maybe?

Something migrating and stopping over. We are on a migration route here and the weird sounds we hear from the sky at night as they pass over. Lapwings made a weird sound-my D.C call them the kazoos- that is the sound the make. They love ploughed land at this time of year.

Parakeets? Bloody loads round here, right kind of size and they make a horrible squeaking wheel noise. They’re always ridiculously high up, so they look dark but are of course bright green.

Was it a tawny owl's mating call?

We get flocks of geese migrating at night in the Spring and Autumn. They make a very loud honking and squeaking racket as they fly over the house in massive formations. It sounds like hundreds of creaking gates!

Great tits sound like squeaky gates.
We have a lot of birds in our garden that sing at night, it's a quiet rural area and I hear them all the time when I go to bed, one of those is a squeaky gate.

Sounds like redwings to me - they are often active at night and have a distinctive call.

I would think redwings or fieldfares.

Far too big to be a tit or even a redwing or fieldfare. Wasn't a hawk, too small to be a goose. Wasn't an owl.

Never seen parakeets round here, have seen loads in London but we're much further north.

Just listened to the audio of oystercatchers and didn't sound like that.

I think so far lapwing is the closest possibility. We do have lots round here and I am used to hearing them in the fields. The call is the nearest to the noise I heard but not quite the same. But the two birds did seem to be chasing each other around so maybe if they were a bit excitedthey sound a bit different?

Were you near any other large bodies of water? If so, like another pp, I would say oystercatchers.

Sorry, just seen that you've checked out oystercatchers - I'll just go back to bed now!

Nightjar?

Hazel grouse?
(I'm a bird-lover as my user name suggests haha, and also visually impaired so have to rely on purely sound. They're very high-pitched).

Here's a link to the hazel grouse recording on the album I have, with background water:

Short-eared owl? They're not much bigger than a wood- pigeon.