Every spring I like to set myself the challenge of an early morning rise, just before dawn, to hear the birds as they begin their day. This spring, it was today.
Once up and out, bundled in dressing gown, coat and fluffy blanked with hands tight around a steaming cuppa, in retrospect I can think of no better start to the morning.
The birds’ spring dawn chorus, whether meant as territorial defence, mate attraction or just warming up for the day ahead is of course one of the glories of nature and with the help of that incredibly useful app Merlin, I can put names to voices I don’t yet know or didn’t catch.
The blackbird was first together with other residents, bluetit, wren, dunnock, wood pigeon, rook and the chiffchaff in his summer home. Others are residents but less often seen in the garden, the pied wagtail, collard dove and chaffinch, and the goldfinches I see daily on the feeder and seed heads are noticeable by their absence. They are later to join the choir so perhaps I’d finished my tea and gone back inside before they arrived.
The Canada geese honked as they flew over early on their daily commute between the river and a local fishing lake and as light flushed the sky I saw flying silently and low over the pond a mallard, while a flock of swirling jackdaws played in the gusty breeze and overhead gulls circled higher.
Two species were a real surprise, a redwing on its way north, away from us to its summer home was caught by Merlin as it passed, and a coot, perhaps it had joined the geese heading for a change of scene and the fish in the lake.
To feel such a privileged part of this incredible private life of birds from just the exchange of a couple of hours in bed for half an hour on the bench by the front door is such a gift, but it did really confuse the dog who is very much a creature of habit and stays abed until it’s time for his walk.
He came out to me, gazed intently into my eyes, licked my hands to check my welfare and sanity and presumably satisfied, he went back in to curl up on his bed. Of course he did and eventually so did I. No sleep came to me though, I was just too full of the joys of spring!
