Time to brush up on bird song (1)

Mark 10 Comments

Last spring I wrote series of blog posts, 50 in all, about bird song – we were all in lockdown and people were listening more. The blogs went down very well.

Well, now is a good time to revise, or simply start, listening to bird song and getting to recognise the species involved. Of course, you don’t have to know what species you are listening to in order to enjoy it – but I think it does add a little to the experience if you do.

Now is the time because there aren’t that many species singing now and that will help you get to grips with them. As time goes on over the next couple of months, more and more species will be added to the chorus, and the amount of singing will peak in April (I guess) but that is the most confusing time if you don’t already have your ear in. So start now.

When I walked to the post box, in the dark, at 6am this morning I heard three of the following five species singing in my small market town surrounds in rural Northants (and the other two were singing while I was in the garden this morning). You will probably be able to hear at least a couple of them even if you live in the biggest city. So here are five species, and the posts tell you something about the birds but also links to the wonderful xenocanto website where you can listen to their songs too. Good luck!

  1. Robin – click here (they sing all through the winter, are often singing before first light, and are found almost everywhere – nice song too (plaintive)
  2. Blackbird – click here (a brilliant, simply brilliant, melodious song – I stopped for a while to listen to one this morning and it set the day up!)
  3. Song Thrush – click here (very accomplished, beloved of poets, and easy to recognise)
  4. Dunnock – click here (it’s an OK song)
  5. Great Tit – click here (everywhere, loud, easy to recognise)

Good luck! I’ll give you some more in early March.

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10 Replies to “Time to brush up on bird song (1)”

  1. Recognising bird songs and their calls is very useful as one so often hears a bird before one sees it. Recognising bird song and calls takes quite a bit of practice but is worth it.

  3. Heard all of these bar Blackbird so far and the Local Mistle Thrushes have been singing on and off for a month or more. New call for me recently has been the alarm of the Great White Egrets that are frequenting the river here, not at all as one expected. I’ve also realised that the goshawk that sometimes greets our dog walk in view of its wood (400M away) with calling is the female. I think what she is saying is a version of ” I’ve seen you, I know you, I’m telling everyone you are here, don’t come closer.” And of course we don’t.

  4. Oystercatchers on the River Tay this morning when I was standing being served at the door of the bread shop…as you do, these days.

    Out of Doors on BBC Radio Scotland 0600-0800 Saturday (also on BBC Sounds) had singing siskin as mystery bird this morning. I recommend blog readers at least try it.

  6. Seeking advice ref completely invisible bird that sings most often and most loudly, close to the house, all spring and summer, all day long, in flowering cherry, yew and field maples, with song what goes “wibblewibblewibblewibblewibblewibblewibblewibble-PHEEEWWWWWwwwwwwwww………” incessantly and does my head in. Dearly Beloved Mrs Cobb suggests it’s that Cock Bullfinch that you watched for three days before it turned into a dead cherry leaf. All helpful replies welcome.

      1. Thanks for that – I have now listened to several online Chaffinches and although none of them match Cobb’s Wibbler exactly there are strong similarities so for now the verdict is Chaffinch. I’m perplexed that the one(s) inhabiting our garden are obvious when scratching around for food on the ground but become invisible when singing in trees even when they are so loud you just know it’s got to be there somewhere.

  7. This morning the dulcet song of the duck rose from the pond. Calling us to remember to put the net over the frog spawn pond.
    In the distant past of our first years here, we enthusiastically dug a pond. The frogs duly came and then the ducks, year after year. The frogs gamely gave the ducks breakfast for a few days each year until there were no more frogs to come.
    A kingfisher had done a fly-past a few times so we let fish go in the pond, and dug a smaller pond for the newts. Sadly the kingfisher has not returned but “Mrs Duck” every year nests in the reeds round the big pond often on the side a couple of metres from where we sat with the dog to have our coffee. Well you cannot tell where she is nesting even if you search, nor could our dog or visitors dogs. We never let them look, or should it be sniff, for it but they never picked her scent up “on the air”..

    Later a friend in a nearby town had a healthy population of frogs and toads in two small ponds brimming with spawn. The new owners of the house intended to fill the ponds in so we rescued a few clumps and the frogs have gone swimmingly (here at least) ever since. Under a net.

    The heron does not seem to sing voluntarily. It only swears when you spook it from round the pond and it flies off or when you hear it behind the trees chuntering to itself as he flies here , wondering if those B humans will be in the garden. Well what else do you call that noise.

    Oh and the whoop whoop bird is back singing? I guess it must be the same one as last year because we often used to hear them, but last year we saw them prospecting our sheds. Unfortunately I spooked them in one shed and there was a bit of flap getting out, but they stayed around. I hope for his sake the reason he thought it was such a good site, the RSPB Turtle dove supplementary feeding project in the next door field, still includes us even if the T doves missed us out last year; but they were only 3km away.

    Before the snow we heard the sweet song of the song thrush from the bushes beyond the garden and the distant song of a mIstle thrush. Since the snow I don’t remember hearing them but the roar of the wind in the trees maybe drowned them.

    I know the Mistle Thrush is still alive. He spent the snow time guarding the mistletoe. Which was a first and very rewarding… at last. Over the years I have spent a lot of frustrating effort getting hundreds of slimy mistletoe berries to stick to the bark of the apple trees and not stay firmly stuck to my fingers. Not to mention planting the apple trees in the first place. Yes, we have been here a long time. The only useful thing the mistletoe had done so far is raise money for charity at Christmas, when I harvest it and put it out the front roadside.
    I am waiting to see a black cap do its thing and visit the mistletoe, one did pop to the feeder once this spring.

    whoop whoop aka stock dove

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