Tune in to the joyous songs that reward an early start

UNIVERSITY lecturer Jane, from York, became hooked while listening to a blackbird which sits on top of the TV aerial outside her home, serenading her with its mellifluous, flute-like melody every morning.

“It is such a common bird, but its song is so beautiful, I just wanted to find out more,” she said, as more than 30 of us gathered for the guided Dawn Chorus walk with bird expert Robert Adams at Fountains Abbey.

I first started seriously tuning in to birdsong this time last year when, walking down a country lane, I heard a magnificent, lyrical song, so terrifically loud I scoured the hedgerow for its source.

There I discovered a tiny wren, chest puffed up, singing its little heart out. The song could have been territorial or part of the ritual of looking for a mate. But it looked as if this little wren was singing for the sheer joy of it. I have been intrigued ever since.

Business consultant Christina Wyatt is similarly afflicted.

She is so keen on birdsong that she left her home near Huddersfield just after 4.30am to join us on the walk. “It’s the sheer beauty of the sound and the huge variety that attracts me. I want to learn more about the different songs,” she explained.

We can console ourselves with the fact we are not alone. A new digital radio station which broadcasts the sound of birdsong – a 20- minute recording of birds singing in chorus, repeated on a continuous loop from 6am to midnight – has attracted more than half a million listeners.

The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, which has birdsong for its telephone hold music, has recently reported that people are asking to listen to it a while longer.

One expert, Aberdeen University anthropologist Andrew Whitehouse, who is conducting a two-year study into the attractions of birdsong, said the tunes often evoke special memories, taking people somewhere else, like a form of escapism.

Seagull sounds remind us of childhood holidays by the sea, while swifts and nightingales remind us of spring and the English countryside, he said.

Mr Adams, our Fountains Abbey guide, reckoned part of the appeal was the fact that the sound was so reassuring.

“If the birds are singing, everything is all right with the world,” he said. “You would miss it straight away if everything went silent.”

The grounds of the National Trust’s 800-year-old Cistercian abbey, through which we walked, are ideal for encountering a huge range of birdsong. Almost all of our common birds – as well as a few of the rarer ones – can be found among the woodlands, open meadows, river, lake and water gardens on the 800-acre site.

This is the best time of year for tuning into the chorus of spring birdsong, which gets into its stride this month and reaches a crescendo in May, although the huge, orchestral explosions you are likely to hear at 4am, as whole trees full of birds suddenly burst into a glorious cacophony of sound, can prove too much for human ears.

Thankfully, our guide preferred a slightly later start. He said: “At 4am or 5am, there is so much going on, you can’t distinguish individual sounds.”

It was refreshingly quiet and still as we set off at 7am, well before the noise and bustle of tourists and day trippers transform the landscape. It was just us, and nature.

Every so often, Mr Adams stopped and listened. “You would never know most of these birds were here if it wasn’t for the birdsong.

“You pick them up by song and then locate them with binoculars.”

It was not long before we heard one of his favourites, the song thrush, which repeats its tuneful phrases several times and often adds other birds’ tunes to its repertoire.

It likes to sing from the highest points, said Mr Adams, so the views of it, perched on top of trees, are striking. “Thrushes and warblers are the best singers – they are powerful, very musical, with a wide range of notes,” he added.

We heard the trill of a wren, which can hit 740 notes in a minute and can be heard a third of a mile away.

Mr Adams also alerted us to the presence of a great tit, which sounded like a squeaky bicycle pump, while the yellowhammer appeared to be asking for “a little bit of bread and no cheese”.

The repeated drill of the chiff-chaff, which the Germans call a zilp-zalp, was unmistakable.

The willow warbler – arriving here in fewer numbers as it finds the expanding Sahara desert more difficult to cross – may have identical plumage, but its song, a fading cadence, is completely different.

Frustratingly, some of us found it hard to pick out specific songs as birds competed for attention.

Jane told us about sites on the internet where you can listen to songs and identify the birds. Someone else recommended some good DVDs.

Mr Adams admitted he had spent a lifetime building up the experience which enabled him to distinguish different sounds. “It’s still difficult, even the experts argue about it,” he said.

We listened out for the goldcrest, Europe’s smallest songbird, whose tune is so highpitched, some people can’t hear it. “It weighs just a few grams, yet thousands of them fly across the North Sea from Scandinavia every year,” said Mr Adams.

Some blue tits were clearly agitated by the presence of a squirrel. “They will take eggs and nestlings; they do an enormous amount of damage,” explained Mr Adams.

“This is a rare treat,” he said, pointing to a pair of dippers sitting on the bridge over the river, making a calling sound like two stones being knocked together.

“You would never see them sitting there like that once the visitors arrive.”

He also pointed to a mass of wild orchids and we stopped beside the magnificent yew hedge at the Elizabethan mansion Fountains Hall to listen out for the scratchy warble of the spotted flycatcher.

“This is usually a good spot for them, but there are none around today,” said Mr Adams.

Over the past few years, many birds have nested too early and haven’t been able to find food for their young.

“This year, they’ve been held back by the cold spell. Hopefully, the hatching of eggs will coincide with plenty of insects being around.”

Blackbirds started ticking loudly. “They’re scolding us, there must be a nest nearby,” said Mr Adams. He explained how everything would go totally quiet if a predatory bird appeared. “An alarm call goes out and then silence. It is eerie.”

We were lucky enough to see a coot’s eggs – unusually exposed – in a nest on an island in the middle of the lake as Canada geese flew overhead.

It provided a rare reminder of the whole point of birdsong – the race to breed, as rival males set up their territories and advertise their patch to females. But I couldn’t help wondering if the desire to breed alone explained the complex melody of birds like the nightingale.

I mentioned my experience of the joyful wren to Mr Adams and he agreed with me. “I think they probably do sing for the joy of it as well.”

It was conspicuously quieter as we came to the end of our two-hour walk. “They are busy feeding. At about midday, they will go quiet and have a siesta,” explained Mr Adams. Disappointingly, we had not heard a cuckoo. “It is the one bird of spring you always think of, but it has declined all over the country,” said Mr Adams. He also missed the hawfinch, whose numbers were also in decline.

“This used to be the best site in the north of England, but they have just about disappeared.” But he was hopeful, thanks to global warming, that one day the nightingale might be heard this far north. “It is in South Yorkshire now,” he said. And today there had been much cause for optimism. “There were a lot of birds about,” he added.

We can assume, then, that things must be pretty well all right with the world.

● Dawn Chorus Walk: Fountains Abbey and Studley Royal, Saturday, May 9, 7am. Meet at the visitor centre.

Normal admission. For more details, contact 01765- 608888, nationaltrust.org.uk or birdsongradio.com.