Tweets at Dawn

I was up at 4:10 this morning to get to Sculthorpe Moor for a dawn chorus walk at 5. It was soooooooo cold and windy, the temperature was only 5C when I left after the walk and breakfast at 7:30!  We had a hail storm during the walk, but fortunately that didn't last long. Because of the cold and wind the birds were only singing quite short songs, so it was a series of individual songs rather than a dawn chorus. Evidently it's the coldest and quietest walk they'd ever done.

The walk is led by Nick Acheson who is very entertaining as well as informative as he invents a character for each bird to help you remember the song. Here's an extract from an article interviewing him for The Guardian a few years ago.

Birds make two kinds of music: songs and calls. "A song is a territorial noise," Acheson said. "It is a virtual hedge or fence, it says, 'this is my patch, keep off'. A call conveys other valuable information such as 'my family are here' or 'snake!'"

The secret to identifying species, according to Acheson, is to listen and identify the personality of a song. Collared doves sing "Toon Army!", while robins sound "like water rushing over stones ‑ a bit sad and yet you want more".

I hope I stay awake for a David Bowie tribute act at the Auden theatre tonight!