A REPORT: Birds in the morning

According to the RSPB, Birds use song and calls to communicate with other birds for a multitude of reasons.

The dawn chorus may dip in intensity during the breeding season, mainly during the short mating periods and again when the young are being cared for. There simply isn’t enough time in the day to defend or mark their patch and tend to the young! In the UK during high summer, the dawn chorus starts as early as 4 AM.

Hmm. These following sounds were recorded at 3:15 in Edinburgh.

3:30 AM: I am not alone. Voices! I hide in the thicket.

3:45 AM: Due to the fog, visibility is not great. See Figure 1. However, I am lucky. I spotted a bird and am trying to isolate its singing from the others.

3:55 AM: For the diehard birdwatchers, I present an unprocessed sound of another bird.

4:15 AM: A short break from the birds in the morning report. Descent to the Dunsapie Loch. Not everything is about birds there. A small animal, either a stoat or a weasel is swimming in the lake. Now that is a heavy breather. Never heard that one before.

4:30 AM: I’m not too fond of all bird species. Stalking a pair of crows is never a good idea. They spotted me, and now they are circling around my head! Not for the fainthearted.

4:45 AM: At the Duddingston apple orchard I finally meet a bird with some song variety. For the sake of my ornithological reputation, I hope those aren’t multiple birds.

5:15 AM: I think birds like the orchard. But not as much as the Duddingston lake. Here is a couple of birds walking in the water and on some random rocks.

5:20 AM: A second short break from the birds in the morning report. This is a 5-second recording of a stream of water dripping into the lake.

5:25 AM: Ah, what a jungle of sounds!

5:27 AM: This is a magpie…

5:28 AM: …and this is a peacock!

5:30 AM: I spot a bee. They aren’t as abundant as the birds, at least not at this hour. A time when one cannot hear the bee is the time when the bee is sticking its head deep into the bell-shaped flowers.

5:31 AM: At some point, the bee becomes entangled in the surrounding grass and gorse. I think that isn’t very reassuring for the bee.

5:32 AM: Together with the bee, cars start to emerge, and that persuades the birds to shut up slowly. Therefore, I put my sound recorder OFF.

To say goodbye - here is the sound of a small bird taking off…

…here is the sound of a medium bird taking off…

…and finally, here is the sound of a big bird taking off…

“A REPORT: Birds in the morning”, field recording, 2020