The Dawn Chorus

This month the dawn chorus gets underway, heralding the start of the mating season as birds begin to look for partners and defend their breeding territories. Beginning with blackbirds and robins towards the end of the month, other species will gradually join in the chorus through until late May when it reaches its glorious peak.

The sunrise singing offers a fascinating insight into the world of our garden birds. If you listen carefully you’ll learn to distinguish individual species and the order in which they start to sing each day. This order is determined by the foods they consume and their ability to see in the dim early morning light. The early birds (blackbirds and robins) really do catch the worms. They have comparatively large eyes compared to their bodies and so they can see in the earliest, faintest light of dawn. As the sun rises and light levels increase, insect eaters (such as wrens) wake from their slumber. Finally the seed eaters such as finches and sparrows are up last of all and wait until just before daybreak before beginning to sing.