Margaret Ellery
Why spring mornings are worth the alarm clock
Between the middle of March and the end of May, a British woodland rebuilds itself from the ground up. The first wood anemones push through the leaf litter, hazel catkins lengthen and swing, and the bare canopy becomes a network of small, busy voices. Birds that have spent the winter in silence, or in loose flocks, are suddenly claiming space. Chiffchaffs arrive from the Mediterranean, blackcaps from Iberia and North Africa, and the resident nuthatches, tits and thrushes all begin to sing in earnest.
This is the best time of year to learn birdsong, because everything is repeated. A bird singing to establish a territory will say the same thing, in the same way, dozens of times before breakfast. Give a spring morning an hour of real attention and you will come away with two or three songs you can recognise for life.
Choose the right morning, and the right hour
Calm, dry, bright mornings are best. Wind ruffles the canopy and drowns the quieter notes; rain suppresses song altogether, though a soft, still, overcast morning after a wet night can be superb.
You do not need to be out at first light. The dawn chorus is spectacular but overwhelming, a wall of sound with little visible movement. Instead, arrive around an hour after sunrise and stay until mid-morning. In March, that means roughly 7am to 9am; by late May, 6am to 8am. Birds are still singing hard, the light is good, and the feeding birds are moving through the lower branches where you can actually see them.
- Warm layers, gloves and a hat — April mornings are colder than they look
- Dull, quiet clothing and soft-soled footwear
- Binoculars if you have them, though ears matter more today
- A notebook, a pencil, and a flask
The three voices to learn first
Start with a small, manageable list. These three will carry you through most spring woods.
- Chiffchaff — an even, unhurried two-note phrase, repeated again and again, roughly chiff-chaff-chiff-chaff. It is one of the first songs of the year and it tells you a small olive-brown warbler is somewhere above you, often moving gently through the canopy.
- Blackcap — much richer and more fluty, a hurried, bubbling warble that often begins with a scratchy, almost untidy chatter before it breaks into clear, sweet notes. It can sound like a garden warbler with better manners.
- Nuthatch — less a song than a set of ringing, insistent calls. Listen for a repeated, metallic weet-weet-weet and a loud, explosive chwit. Nuthatches also tap softly at bark, and their calls carry far through bare branches.
Alongside these you will hear great tits (a clear, ringing two-note teacher-teacher), robins, wrens, dunnocks and, if you are lucky, a song thrush repeating each phrase two or three times over. The song thrush is your best teacher of all: it practises, so you can too.
How to walk, and how to listen
The trick is to move less and pause longer than feels natural. Walk ten or fifteen slow paces, then stop. Stand completely still for a full two minutes. Count the different songs you can separate out, and try to follow just one of them to its source.
- Keep to paths and rights of way — March to August is nesting season and scrub is full of hidden nests
- Never use recorded calls or playback; it distracts birds from real work
- Keep dogs close and quiet, and leave the drone at home
- Walk into the wind if you can, and keep the sun behind you so you are not scanning into glare
- Look for movement, then follow it with your eyes rather than lifting binoculars immediately
Useful habit: when you hear an unfamiliar song, note its rhythm, pitch and repetition before trying to identify it. Is it fast or slow? Rising or falling? Is the same phrase repeated, or does it ramble on?
Keeping a nature journal as you go
A journal turns a pleasant walk into a record you can compare, week after week, year after year. It does not need to be neat. Date, time, place, weather and wind direction at the top, then whatever you noticed.
- Firsts — the first chiffchaff of the year, the first bluebell, the first butterfly
- Sounds — write the song as nonsense syllables; your own mnemonics stick better than anyone else's
- Numbers — how many singing males of each species you could hear at once
- Ground flora — wood anemone, wood sorrel, lesser celandine and bluebell all suggest long-established woodland
- Sketches — a rough leaf shape or a bird's posture will fix the memory far better than a photograph
Return to the same place
The real pleasure comes from repetition. Pick one small wood, one stretch of towpath or one corner of a park, and walk it on the same route every week or two from March to May. You will hear the chiffchaff arrive, the blackcap join in, the nuthatch settle. You will notice the morning when the canopy closes over and the songs thin out, as birds turn from announcing territories to feeding young.
Take your time, write it down, and go back next week. Spring rewards the patient.
