The Joy of Birdsong

Late winter/spring is just the right time to learn more about birdsong, as we gradually become aware of the sound that has largely been absent since last autumn.  More and more birds are starting to sing and you can hear many of them in your garden and nearby woods. Try to learn one song at a time and listen to a CD of birdsong or look on the internet for, say, Blue tit song or Robin song; the RSPB website and other websites have bird song recordings. You can get considerable pleasure from the simple act of listening to birdsong.

In late spring/early summer the dawn chorus is one of the delights of the countryside. This usually starts an hour or more before dawn and the earliest songsters normally include skylark, robin, song thrush, and blackbird. May is the time when the dawn chorus is at its richest.

Birds possess a vocal organ that humans lack - a ‘syrinx’ in their lower trachea; this complex structure is what produces the sound. The purpose of song in birds is twofold: to obtain a territory and to attract a mate. Males often sing from prominent song-posts around their territory. Mistle thrushes sing from the tops of tall trees; suburban birds, such as blackbird, starling and woodpigeon, sing from rooftops or TV aerials. ‘Subsong’ is a very quiet, soft song that some birds sing in the winter. I once heard (and saw) a male blackcap singing a subsong, which was barely audible, in a dense bush near St Andrew’s Church in Plymouth. Birds also use many different calls to communicate and these calls are very specific in their meaning. Contact calls help to keep flocks of birds together in flight, while alarm calls warn other birds of a predator; there are also begging calls of fledged young, courtship calls, and many other calls specific to each species.

Apart from ‘proper’ birdsong, confined to the true ‘songbirds’ (or passerines), there are many unique sounds made by other birds: the ‘drumming’ or ‘bleating’ of snipe, the ‘churring’ of nightjars, the bubbling call of the curlew, the onomatopoeic sound of the cuckoo, the screaming of swifts, the drumming of woodpeckers, the hooting of owls, the ‘coo-ing’ of pigeons and doves, the frog-like croaks of ‘roding’ Woodcock at dusk, and many more. Most of these sounds can be heard within a 10-mile radius of Yelverton or Tavistock.

The question of which bird is the ‘best’ songster is debatable. Some say the nightingale, others the blackbird or song thrush, and others the blackcap. Some birds mimic the sounds of other birds. Starlings are well-known mimics and they include the songs of lapwing, curlew and other birds in their repertoire; jays often mimic the call of a buzzard. One exceptional mimic is the marsh warbler. Studies showed that this bird mimics the songs of around 140 different birds, half of them learned in its African wintering area. Indian hill mynahs, which are related to starlings, are also excellent mimics, particularly of the human voice! In America mockingbirds include the songs of over 100 different birds in their range.

Birds that are widespread may have different ‘dialects’ in their songs; for instance, the songs of chaffinches in Scotland, southern England and Germany contain distinctively different phrases. The French composer Olivier Messiaen found birdsong fascinating. He notated bird songs worldwide and incorporated transcriptions of birdsong into all his music from the 1950s onwards. One piece he composed for flute and piano (La merle noir) was based entirely on the song of the blackbird.

Despite the appalling living conditions of troops in the First World War, birds and birdsong were often written about in their letters and diaries. The sound of skylarks singing was even included in John McCrae’s memorable poem ‘In Flanders Fields’.

Anthony John