International Dawn Chorus Day takes place on the first Sunday of May each year and is a worldwide celebration of nature's greatest symphony.
The Wildlife Trusts - Dawn Chorus Day
RSPB - Join the Dawn Chorus Festival
This global event began in the UK in 1987 when wildlife enthusiast and local broadcaster Chris Baines decided to celebrate his birthday by inviting friends and family to listen to wildlife wake up with him at Moseley Bog in Birmingham. The event was promoted by the Birmingham and Black Country Wildlife Trust where Chris Baines was Vice-President and it grew in to a UK and global event.
From late December, the days get longer and lighter and the volume, intensity and diversity of bird song increases. By the end of April and the beginning of May, the dawn chorus reaches its peak as our summer visitors join our resident birds.
"The woods are a battlefield, and not just between opposing males of the same species. The dawn chorus sounds like an orchestra, but it is really a sonic ecosystem where the competition to be heard has driven every species into its own special acoustic niche."
For this year’s International Dawn Chorus Day, I set my alarm for stupid o’clock and left home at 4 a.m. for a walk around my St. Nicholas Church local patch site. There was already a male Blackbird singing.
Over the next 1.5 hours, the dawn chorus developed and I recorded the following species as they joined in:
Blackbird (at least 5 singing males)
Woodpigeon
Robin
Song Thrush (at least 5 singing males)
Carrion Crow
Blackcap (at least 8 singing males)
Great Tit
Chiffchaff (at least 8 singing males with one seen)
Wren
Lesser Whitethroat (singing male still at the usual location in the northern section of the site)
Blue Tit
Green Woodpecker
Magpie
My Merlin app also claimed to “hear” the following:
Long-tailed Tit
House Sparrow
Greenfinch
Jackdaw
Common Redshank
Nuthatch
I record the first 4 of these species at the site on a fairly regular basis so it would not have been surprising if some or all of them were present in addition to those species that I did hear during my visit.
I have never seen or heard either of the last 2 species at the site and it would be exceptional if they were present this morning. Therefore, I suspect that Merlin erroneously “heard” these species.
Having heard both a male and female Tawny Owl during my visit on 16th April 2025, I was disappointed to hear neither bird again whilst it was still dark.
Love nature .... act now
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