Lockdown Birdsong

Possibly the only plus point in the current lockdown is that the world has become largely silent apart from natural sounds. Fortunately, now is the time of year when the world is anything but silent because we are surrounded by birdsong. An early morning jog around the village, or a stint in the garden, is accompanied by songs and calls from seemingly every tree or telegraph pole, rooftop, field or hedgerow. 

But for those who find the mixture of melody and timbre confusing, the sheer number of individuals contributing is frustrating, especially as many, like blackbird and song thrush for example, are similar. Learning to identify and differentiate a few species at a time, therefore, is a sensible strategy. In the case of the two in question, Robert Browning provided a clue 

That's the wise thrush; he sings each song twice over,

lest you should think he never could recapture

the first fine careless rapture! 

Listen carefully, and he does indeed repeat short phrases two or three times, while the blackbird is less repetitive.

Song Thrush

                                                                  BlackbirdEven the cuckoo can be confused with a distant collared dove, which itself is easily confused with woodpigeon. The trick of separating the latter two is the collared dove’s annoyingly repetitive football chant of “U-Ni-Ted, U-Ni-Ted”

Collared Dove

The woodpigeon’s call can be rendered as a different drone: in Gloucestershire, where historically Welsh border raids resulted in the loss of cattle, it was a monotonous “take-two-cows, Taffy; take-two-cows, Taffy; two”.

Woodpigeon

We can thank Enid Blyton for helping us recognise the yellowhammer’s “little-bit-of-bread-and-no-cheeeese”. Sung throughout the day, it is sometimes the only accompaniment to a drowsy summer afternoon when most other birds have fallen silent. An added delight is seeing the male’s head, lemon yellow against the dark green hawthorn leaves, protruding from the hedge.

Yellowhammer

Many species don’t have a convenient mnemonic to help us remember their song, but I sometimes find it helpful to create a mental picture of when and where I first connected a song to a species, like sitting next to a dense bramble patch in Suffolk where nightingales and a garden warbler were singing simultaneously. A magical moment, never to be forgotten.

Nightingale

Garden Warbler

NB. Rarely seen or heard in gardens!

Nowadays, with a smartphone ever to hand, there are apps a-plenty to assist. Free ones are abundant, but come with abundant advertising too, and often with species you are never likely to hear. An app I have come to rely on is Chirp! Bird Songs UK and Europe, worth every penny of the £3.99 to download it. Simple to use, you can set it to UK species only, specify your habitat (a garden or moorland, for example) and has photographs to aid identification. Most helpfully, there is a ‘favourites’ function so that once you’ve mastered a species you can separate it for future reference.

Assuming you will be proud of your ability to distinguish your collared dove from your woodpigeon, and blackbird from song thrush when Lifeline is next published, I’ll provide a few more online hints for making the most of this, possibly unique, experience being forced upon us.