International Dawn Chorus Day 3rd of May
It’s International Dawn Chorus Day on the 3rd of May. So, if you don’t know your blackbird from your robin song, or your blue tit from your great tit call this might just help.
May is a fantastic month for listening to birdsong, so you can always choose a morning that suits you better, if you can’t make the 3rd of May. If like me, early mornings really aren’t appealing, I’ve included a couple of alternative ideas later in the article that don’t require setting an alarm at all.
Anyone who loves birds will tell you that the dawn chorus is the greatest soundscape of all. Not the Top 40 blaring from a radio, but the voices of birds singing as the very first light appears. It’s a soundscape that has been playing since birds evolved — if not before. While the coffee brews, it’s one of those rare, glorious moments in the day when you can simply sit, listen, and let the birds do the talking.
Now people who know me well, know I am not a morning person. I have had several mugs designed that specifically state ‘don’t talk to me before my second cup of coffee.’ Early starts are very much not my thing. I am more of a night owl and would rather, as I am doing right now, stay up late and enjoy the silence, when everyone has gone to bed. It’s a time when the noise in my head finally quietens, and my creative thoughts can make their way through my fingertips. Whether I actually achieve that is for you to decide.
And yet, three times this spring I’ve dragged myself up at the crack of dawn to listen to that dawn-time symphony. And yes, I’ll have brain fog for the rest of the day — but every single time, it’s been worth it.
The dawn chorus is strongest in spring, in the UK from mid-March to early May. The birds sing around sunrise, the best time being 30mins before first light to 30mins after the sun has risen.
Points to Consider:
Weather Matters: It’s far more enjoyable when it’s warm and sunny rather than wet, windy, and cold. Interestingly, birds often sing particularly well after a cold night (I explain why below), so it’s worth checking the weather forecast the evening before and planning accordingly.
Location: You can hear the dawn chorus almost anywhere birds live and sing — your garden, a local park, woodland, or even a quiet green space nearby.
Essential equipment: none at all… although a hot drink, a notebook, and a comfy chair definitely help.
Optional extras. While not essential, I highly recommend the free Merlin Bird ID app available on most smartphones. It is a brilliant companion, allowing you to record birdsong and listen to it later. It flags the bird singing at the time, so if you don’t know your calls or songs this is a helpful aid.
From experience a bird flagged on Merlin doesn’t mean it’s in the vicinity, as many birds that migrate from Africa and particularly the UK resident Song Thrush can mimic other birds.
So, use Merlin with a bit of caution. Think of it as a helpful friend that points out a bird they have heard, then use that prompt to really tune in and focus on the sound yourself. I find it especially useful for picking up birds I might not notice straight away, as it’s great at filtering out background noise.
Did you know
The human ear can detect hundreds of individual frequencies simultaneously, but the brain generally processes and identifies only about three to four distinct, complex sound sources at once.
For those with more experience
Use the voice memo app on your smartphone to make a recording so you can replay it at a later date and not only enjoy it all over again but test yourself on whether you can name the birds. If you are not confident, play the recording with the Merlin app at the same time to see which birds it picks up.
Dawn Chorus Recordings:
This was a recording I made in the garden 9th of April, its 6min in length.
The dominant birds throughout the recording are blackbird, great tit, blue tit and wren can you hear them?
Blackbird – melodic, mellow tone, a clear loud fluting.
Robin – song often begins with a few high, drawn-out thin notes, then the verse drops in pitch and speeds up with fast runs of trembling and excited clear squeaky notes.
Great Tit – listen for teacher, teacher or I’m busy, busy, busy.
Blue Tit – sissisudu call, couple of drawn-out, sharp notes followed by a trill
Wren – a high-pitched burst of noise a repeated series of metallic ringing notes and trills.
The wren gives a significant burst at approximately 2.18min, the robin came in at 1min and blackcap at 2min. The blackcap had just arrived a few days earlier to the garden. What I also picked up that morning was the willow warbler, the first time of hearing it for the year, but the recording doesn’t seem to pick it up.
I make that 6 birds can you hear any more?
Here’s another one for you…. See if you can hear any different birds. Its 5min in length.
Have you done a dawn chorus this year?
If so, I would love to hear from you, where you did it, what was your bird count and what was your star species?
What purpose does the dawn chorus serve:
1. Attracting a mate – most singing is done by male birds, advertising their fitness to females. Singing strongly after a cold night, before feeding, signals good health and access to a high-quality territory.
2. Defending territory – Loud, repeated songs warn other males that a territory is already occupied. This helps birds avoid physical fights, which would be costly in terms of energy and injury.
3. Making the most of dawn conditions – sound travels further in the cool air of early morning. Low background noise (less traffic and human activity) makes songs easier to hear, too dark to forage early dawn is a low-productivity time for feeding, so birds use it for communication instead.
The dawn chorus peaks during the breeding season and gradually fades as birds focus more on nesting and raising chicks later in summer.
If you can arrange a group dawn chorus that’s even better. I went out with the Barnsley Naturalists on the 22nd of Apr to Worsborough reservoir, a slightly different habitat. One of the advantages of being in a group is that there are many more listening ears, so far more is picked up. It also turned into a bit of an early morning ramble, as we went for a walk around the reservoir once the main chorus had finished. By the end of the session, we’d recorded 35 species — not a bad tally for just a couple of hours.
This is a screenshot of some of the birds picked up by Merlin that morning.
The highlights from that visit were the sheer number of blackcaps in song. Most seemed to have already paired up, with males sporting their distinctive black caps seen alongside females with their subtler brown caps.
Stock doves were cooing as well — interestingly, a pair appears to have taken up residence in one of the trees adjacent to my garden, as I’ve been hearing them for several days now. A treecreeper was also spotted, spiralling its way up tree trunks and giving out the occasional contact call, no doubt keeping in touch with its mate nearby.
But the sound — and sight — of the day belonged to the garden warbler. A first for the year, of this shy bird. We were lucky enough to catch a glimpse, fleeting as it was, making the moment all the more special.
If you’d like to encourage me to get up for more early morning dawn choruses, you can always buy me a coffee via the link below.
I know the shops aren’t open at that hour, but I promise I’ll pop in on the way home to clear the brain fog — and if you’re feeling especially generous, maybe even treat myself to a bacon butty too.
For those who don’t enjoy early mornings, why not try the following instead:
1. Set up your Merlin app at an open window. – If you live in an area where birds can be heard from the house, open your window and set up the app to record the sounds heard. You can then listen to it at a later time and date. (Warning - it can flag up a message after 10mins to ask you if you still wish to continue recording, irrespective of this message it will record until you stop it. It also records voices so be careful what you say……)
2. Try a Dusk Chorus. – A dusk chorus can be just as stunning as its dawn-time counterpart. I tried one the other evening and recorded 16 species, along with my first sighting of a swift, which was a real treat. I even brought out the bat detector and picked up flyovers from common pipistrelles — plus a first for the garden: a nathusius pipistrelle. The only downside is that, depending on where you live, traffic noise and general human activity can sometimes creep into the soundscape. Even so, it’s still a magical way to experience wildlife without having to set an early alarm.
So, what are you waiting for, give it a go and enjoy a beautiful, glorious, wonderful free soundscape whichever way you can.
Let me know in the comments what you hear. There are still a few birds arriving from Africa, so you never know — you might even be lucky enough to catch a cuckoo or a turtle dove.
And if you’re not in the UK, I’d love to hear what a dawn chorus is like where you are: when it happens, what it sounds like, and which birds take part. I don’t travel much beyond the UK these days, so it would be wonderful to learn about dawn choruses from further afield.
Sources:
Collins bird Guide App – for the sounds of the bird adapted from the book with my own interpretations.
Merlin Bird App – available on both Android and AppleStore
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