International Dawn Chorus Day – 4th May 2008

I’m an early bird and I love this time of year when I wake up to the dawn chorus. The blackbird particularly entrances me with his perfect fourths and tuneful songs. The cockerels start up in competition, but the blackbird always wins through for me.

He sits outside our bedroom window, either on the garage roof or in the tree wooing the ladies and singing his heart out. If I were a female blackbird I’d be mating in a moment with his fine voice! She plays hard to get, every spring it is the same, and it brings me such pleasure to hear him getting more and more intense the less interest she shows!

Tomorrow, 4th May is International Dawn Chorus Day A worldwide celebration of Nature’s daily Miracle, and what a miracle it is.

Last year, we went on holiday for a few days to Cornwall and I missed dreadfully the birdsong. Don’t get me wrong, the ocean has it’s own songs – the sea, the wind, the cry of seagulls, but there was something about the sound of the garden birds, even the noisy, chatting hedge sparrows that my soul missed.

It’s a magical sound – why not get up early and take a journey to a local wood in time for the bird’s chorus? Or camp out for the night and be woken by it?

I love the thought that people around the world will be celebrating one of the finest gifts from Mother Nature. It’s a beautiful thought that we can all be joined by the power of her song for a moment in the year. If you need an instant fix, there are some great mP3 on the Dawn Chorus site for you to listen to from cuckoos to nightjars, owls to blue tits!

The UK events are being run by many local conservation groups, as well as councils and national conservation organisations such as The Wildlife Trusts, RSPB, National Trust, Forestry Commission, BTCV, the Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust and the Woodland Trust.

What is your favourite bird song? Do you have any measures in your garden to attract birds to it?