Industrial Style Propaganda

When you have a hard, or phony message to get across, in the face of common sense, the rule is to work ten times harder to bamboozle the public. We've seen that recently in election broadcasts.

It's International Dawn Chorus Day.  It's organised by a wildlife trust in Birmingham. The BBC has become involved via its 'Tweet of the Day'.

So which recording have they chosen to highlight for International Dawn Chorus Day? The spirit of indoctrination always high on the agenda of the conservation industry has determined that it should be a dawn chorus over heather moorland!!! It is undoubtedly fraudulent. Anyone thinking they might hear special birdsong by getting up extra early and going to, say, Burbage Moor would do far better staying in bed and listening to the blackbirds and robins waking up in their suburban streets.

The sound heard on that recording, I can assure you, you will never hear. You may hear one or at best two of those birds and probably at different times. I assume the recording has been edited as a composite of various moorland birds.

In woodland, however, you are very likely to hear a genuine dawn chorus with many species singing, yes singing, not just calling, all at the same time.   I've spent years listening out for the perfect bird orchestra, always in woodland. I've only tried a few times on treeless moors. When I have been out on the moors it's been a lucky day when I've heard the calls of two species. If you listen carefully to the words  David Attenborough reads from his script he mentions that some of these calls have been recorded at night.

So why feature this recording above the others? It's because those managing heather moorland  need to justify their interventions in artificially managed landscapes. When people actually walk out there the experience is usually dull and close to silent apart from airliners overhead, quite the opposite of the vibrant, thrilling sounds heard in the woods. So some of them ask "What's the point of  setting this unnatural landscape in stone, entailing the spending of lots of public of money when trees would grow here if it was left to nature?"  Today's featured 'tweet-of-the-day' recording of a supposed dawn chorus on heather moorland is the industry's attempt to persuade itself there's an answer to that question. It's propaganda, and it's aimed at themselves as well as the more gullible members of the public.