Ingham’s W RLD
MAD dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun but last week I chose to go out well before the sun had even got out of bed. So at 4.45am I found myself sitting in my garden, wrapped up against the frost. The Sun was only a half promise in the East but a virtually full moon cut through the darkness.
Already the birds were warming up for one of my favourite natural spectacles – the Dawn Chorus. First to grab the stage was a robin, with a sad, slow song that belies its ferocity as a defender of its territory and mate.
A couple of minutes later a blackbird took up the challenge with its lazy fluting.
Normally I never see more than two blackbirds in my garden but the assembled choir showed that the hedges and trees are home to many more of these territorial birds than I thought possible.
Next up was a mystery singer which spluttered away, almost as if it was clearing its throat, before getting it right. It was a blue tit, still groggy with sleep.
For 10 minutes the blackbirds dominated before a distant pigeon’s cooing wafted over from the East, and at 5.01 a summer visitor chipped in, a blackcap not long in from the Med, defying the frost to sing for a mate.
So it went on – the high decibel trilling of a wren, the “tee-cher” call of a great tit, the five-note cooing of a wood pigeon and then the simplest song of all, another visitor, a chiffchaff singing its name.
At 5.18 a dunnock launched into its jangling song as a pair of jackdaws flew overhead, high in the sky. By 5.30, as the Sun graced us with its presence, the birds were winding down.
They sing just before sunrise because it’s quiet, noise travels further in the cooler air and predators such as sparrowhawks find it hard to spot them in the half-light.
For all its beauty this musical feast is about love, lust and war. The males are warning rivals to keep away while also trying to seduce a mate.The better the song, the fitter the male and the more food his territory is likely to offer.
It’s a sort of Strictly for the birds but without the dance-off.
There is an easier way to hear it. Open the bedroom window from about 4.30 and listen in comfort. Then no-one can accuse you of being madder than a mad dog.
MIGRATING birds fly high when crossing the Sahara, Swedish researchers tell Science.
Great reed warblers normally migrate by night but when crossing a huge natural hurdle they carry on all day, rising at dawn from their normal cruising height of 6,500ft to 20,000ft.
UNIVERSITY College London and the University of East Anglia have taken on a Mission Impossible.
We should show wasps some love, they argue in Biological Reviews. They predate pests and perform pollination worth £180 billion a year worldwide.
All true – but no consolation when they next ruin a picnic.
GREEN TIP: Give yourself a break. Join Plantlife’s No Mow May by leaving the lawn uncut so that the bees can enjoy the daisies.
BIRDS cannot resist the bright lights of the city. Nocturnal recordings of the autumn migration show thrushes are more likely to fly over sites where artificial light at night is strongest.
Blackbirds, redwings and song thrushes were five, four and three times more likely to overfly Cambridge than the surrounding countryside, says a British Trust for Ornithology paper in Ibis. This backs up studies based on radar tracking.
However, it can be a fatal attraction. In North America at least 100 million birds die every year from flying into buildings.
A TAX refuge is being reborn as a haven for turtles, says Exeter University. Numbers of green or loggerhead turtle nests in the Cayman Islands have risen from 39 in 1998-99 to 675 three years ago. Captive breeding, fishery restrictions and protection of nest sites have helped, reports Frontiers in Marine Science. Professor Brendan Godley describes the recovery as “fantastic”. Turtle population levels are historically low compared to the millions pre-1800 – but conservation works.