Trying to Sneak a Sunrise Past a Rooster

Even though I spend most of my waking hours at work -- like you and everyone else -- I have another life entirely, away from work. Here's a slice of that life...

There's a rooster in our neighborhood. My husband and I don't know where the rooster lives, but he lives pretty close to us. We're early risers. We usually have coffee on our back porch and visit and have been entertained by the rooster who announces it's time to get up!

We've listened to him long enough and often enough that he's become part of our conversations. We both wondered how this rooster knows what time it is. Neither of us had a clue, so I told my husband that one of these days I'd look it up on-line.

I thought there was some magical hormone at work inside the rooster's brain that's triggered by the sunrise. I thought there had to be some sort of scientific explanation and surely, someone would've posted this on-line for those times when no one knows the answer to the question - how does the rooster know what time it is?

I googled "why do roosters crow?" and there were 187,000 results. Holy cow! You know you can't trust everything you read on-line, but here's the best "scientific" explanations I found:

Roosters crow to let the others know where they are and they're defending their territory. Roosters don't just crow in the morning; but at all times of day. Sometimes they crow when they're disturbed by a light or a noise.

Well...that's not too scientific, and actually, none of those explanations are definitive.  So, here's my own theory -- I think it has something to do with the guy who lives next door to where the rooster lives. He leaves early for work and when he goes out the door, he scares the rooster and the rooster starts crowing!

Rise & shine - Have a great day!