Tune in to the dawn chorus
MORE than 70 years ago, Eric Simms, a former Bomber Command flight lieutenant who was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross in the Second World War, gave himself a new mission.
In early June, 1951, Simms, who had joined the BBC as a wildlife sound recordist the previous year, organised the spread of the dawn chorus across the UK.
In particular he focused on skylarks, and the exact moment they roused as light rose across the country from the northeast to the southwest. Their first song was recorded at 1.30am in the Cairngorms, 1.51am in Northumberland, 2.20am in Kent, 2.27am in Staffordshire and 2.36am in south Wales.
Early one morning this week, I found myself in Norfolk, listening to the skylarks singing over a field of wheat and beans, with an expert who, like Simms, has been monitoring the dawn chorus for the past 30 years.
Dr Simon Butler, an ecologist at the University of East Anglia, and his colleagues have been measuring exactly how the dawn chorus has changed in some 3,000 locations across the country.
They have found that as specialist farmland species decline, the dawn chorus is becoming quieter and more homogenous – overall a reduced affair compared to the bombastic orchestra that Simms recorded.
Warmer weather is also making some new voices heard: in particular ring-necked parakeets and the highly-invasive red-billed leiothrix, a brightly coloured songbird native to South East Asia, which according to reports this week are increasingly cropping up in southern England.
Meanwhile, studies in urban areas have found the dawn chorus is beginning earlier than in Simms’ time due to artificial light pollution fooling birds that morning has broken. Great tits, blackbirds, robins and wrens have all been found to be singing earlier than previous years.
The weather this weekend is largely sunny, breezy, and aside from a bit of rain in the northwest fine and dry. It is a perfect chance to rise early and tune in to the dawn chorus. For better or worse, it will never be the same again.*