May Concert Party - a Review

Spring is always in a hurry.  The peak season for dawn chorus birdsong is not long and the best things soon go. The birds have been very good to us this May. The best experience comes when many species are singing at the same time in an eruption of complexity making identification sometimes difficult; but then should we care? - enjoyment does not depend on certainties or statistics. Complexity is important as with the greatest music. The prominent singers are better for the presence of ever changing accompaniments each strand of which is worth listening to in its own right.

This year the loudest and most distinctive birds have typically been Song Thrush, Blackbird, Blackcap and Chaffinch. The last one is always very persistent and even irritating with his rattly song sometimes obscuring more lyrical and delicate songsfrom other birds. The Song Thrush can sound like an exotic calling bird from tropical regions. Its habit of repeating its phrases, which may have been copied from other birds, somehow goes well with the blooms of Rhodedendrum ponticum. Picture and sounds not out of place in the Himalayas, perhaps?



By contrast the Blackbird's song seems characteristically native; and this has been a good May for those of us who spend our winters yearning for the time when his song will be heard again. Partly it's those long pauses followed by unhurried, mellow phrases; and we always forgive the squawks he can't resist throwing in at the end. If we can find somewhere with no mechanical sounds with several of them singing territorially spaced out across a largely natural landscape the experience is incomparable.

This short snatch is more close up.




It's fascinating to hear these two birds singing close to each other. Here the recording favours the Thrush - a reflection of his more assertive song - but the Blackbird refuses to give way and keeps to his admirable laid back, more melodic and creative song.



I can't recall another year with so many Blackcaps singing in the woods. He is another bird whose loudness belies his size. But he's also more than that because both musical ideas and timbre are well above the norm even for warblers. As we've walked through the woods around daybreak the last week we've rarely been out of earshot of Blackcaps, with the occasional Garden Warbler and Wood Warbler too and many, many Willow Warblers and Chiffchaffs.

Robins are plentiful of course, and an amusing observation repeated an incident from previous years. A Robin was heard singing not far from a Blackcap: his voice seemed to change, becoming more fruity as if to say "anything you can do".