Page 7 - Wildlife News April 2015

Up with the lark Skylark.
(Amy Lewis)
Colin Williams, Reserves Ecology Officer
Song thrush.
On the 3 May wildlife lovers will celebrate (Steve Waterhouse)
International Dawn Chorus Day. This annual
event celebrates one of the oldest wakeup
calls – the dawn chorus – and the beauty
of birdsong. It’s vibrant and uplifting. It’s
powerful and melodic. And it happens while
most of us are still asleep.

The dawn chorus (or ‘hymn to the dawn’)
is one of nature’s great wonders. It is a truly
unique and rewarding experience; well worth
the early rise. No two dawn choruses are the
same, so one of the delights is to list the order
in which species first begin to sing. The times
at which birds ‘rise’ is related to their feeding
behaviour and the brightness of the sky.
Blackbirds and skylarks are traditionally the
first species to take their cue from the eastern
sky. This is the origin of ‘up with the lark’.

Peak time for the dawn chorus is late April
and early May and it is at about five o’clock, as
the sun rises, that it will reach its magnificent,
intense peak. Listening to the dawn chorus
makes you appreciate the sheer size and
variety of the bird population in an area.

You can listen to the dawn chorus almost
anywhere. The biggest diversity of bird song
will be heard in the countryside, particularly
on nature reserves where different habitat
types support lots of bird species. However,
the abundance of gardens and parks in our
towns and cities provides the perfect home
for many bird species, so if you don’t have
the time to get out and about why not simply
open the bedroom window and listen to your
local robins, song thrushes and chaffinches
singing and establishing their own homes?

Join us on one of our organised dawn
chorus guided walks at College Lake,
Bucks or Meadow Farm, Oxon. See
your copy of Wildlife Diary for details
or visit www.bbowt.org.uk/events

Hawthorn blossom For more information about wildlife near you visit bbowt.org.uk/wildlife/species-a-z

Sprays of white blossom Woodpeckers
envelope the hawthorn in early
Listen out for the tapping of
May as trees burst into life to these beak-banging birds. The
illuminate the wider countryside. drum rolls of the great spotted

The flowers are a magnet for woodpecker, pictured, are
insects, which come to feast on far more urgent than those
of the rarer lesser spotted
its nectar and pollen, and are woodpecker, with each set
a delicacy of the dormouse. Its
leaves support the caterpillars completed in less than a
second. Parks and gardens are
of many moth species.
the best places to find them.

7
(Richard Burkmar)
(Mike Snelle)

April 2015