Dawn Chorus

5^th May. 4.30am. Dawn. Soft grey, grainy light has slipped into the room through the window pushing the darkness into the corners. Somewhere, on the edge of consciousness, a bird breaks the silence of the early morning. A blackbird. Maybe the one that sings from the apple tree at the end of the garden.

I turn over, squint at the clock and hurriedly switch off the alarm. As I shuffle out of the bedroom I ask myself whose stupid idea it was to get up at this ridiculous hour to go on a dawn chorus walk. I could have listened to the bird’s wake-up call lying in bed, cocooned in a warm comfortable duvet.  ‘You booked it’ replied a tiny voice inside my head. No answer to that.

Filled with toast and tea, binoculars and notebook in rucksack I set off. It is the perfect morning to be up early; a chill rising from the ground, the sun lifting into a clear, pale blue sky etched with soft white contrails. And everywhere it is green.

After long months of wet and cold, with a false start in April that sent everyone rummaging for sun cream and shorts, followed by more miserable cold and wet, spring has finally spilled out across the fields, along the hedgerows and through the woods. The lane is laced with waist high white umbels of Cow Parsley, elephant-eared leaves of burdock and the tiny mauve flowers of Herb Robert. Gone are the glossy dark green leaves and yellow splashes of celandines. They have been shouldered out by clumps of Garlic Mustard, (or Jack by the Hedge) with its small white flowers and spicy green leaves. The Hawthorn has finally broken and the Sycamore is shedding its pale green florets across the tarmac. The Horse Chestnut at the bottom of the hill is covered in creamy white panicles each made up of tiny, white, five petalled flowers with deep lipstick pink centres quivering in the gentle early morning breeze.

Early May is the perfect time to meet up to enjoy the dawn chorus. Bird song is at its height because it is the breeding season. We might pause, hold our breath and listen to a blackbird pouring out its song from the top of a tree as daylight fades, amazed at the beauty of the sound but birdsong is purely functional as far as the birds are concerned. It is all to do with sex. The strident song of a wren hidden in a thicket of brambles is a come and get me call to catch that soul mate we all look for. The liquid sound of a nightingale late in the evening is a lure designed to attract migrating females passing overhead. The robin sitting on the fence, singing its heart out as daylight breaks is warning possible competition to stay out of his territory. In May sexual activity hots up and so does the bird song. By June most birds have paired up and the serious business of rearing young takes priority and nights out on the town looking for that perfect partner have become a thing of the past.

I arrive a little late (as usual). The group has already gathered at the edge of the village where fields open out westwards and the Downs sweep up towards the sky to the south. A dozen of us; all carrying binoculars and well wrapped up. After introductions and the inevitable safety talk we set off along a gravelled road dubbed ‘Nightingale Lane’ into the hushed stillness of the morning.

On our left runs an overgrown thicket of Hawthorn, Blackthorn and Elder with Willow, Sycamore, and Ash rising behind. The sun has lifted above the tree line and is picking out the new green growth of the hedge. Behind it lies a mill pond, overgrown with reeds and hidden from view.

We pause to listen to a Chiffchaff repeating its name followed by a trill. I am looking for a small grey, brown bird with paler underparts but cannot see it flitting around amongst the leaves. Migrants, they arrive here in April from the Mediterranean. To the right of the Chiffchaff our guide Andrew picks up the wheezing sound of Green Finches as they dart through the trees. They form loose colonies for nesting. Safety in numbers? We pick up the song of a Chaffinch practising its musical scales. Someone once told me to remember the Chaffinch’s song by imagining a bowler working up to pitch a ball and for me that works.

And then comes one of my favourite bird songs and I see him! A Blackcap performing his rich musical repertoire; just for me. Another migrant which arrives in April. He has a black skull cap, she wears a blue. A Song Thrush competes, repeating the same tune, not once, not twice but three times to make sure we have got it! There are wrens hidden deep inside the hedgerow singing against each other.

Finally, the lane lives up to its name and the warbling, bubbling sound of a Nightingale pours out into the still morning air. Their numbers are declining, mainly due to the loss and degradation of their coppiced woodland but there are other factors involved which we are uncertain about including an increase in the number of deer grazing on the vegetation they need.

At the end of the lane, a gate opens out into a wide grassy valley with steep sides where if you look carefully you will find cowslips and Early Purple Orchids growing alongside each other. There are Skylarks rising and falling and singing around us. We climb and behind us the Weald yawns and stretches out his arms and turning around we can see forever. In the distance lies the smudge of the North Downs. Below us are fields, hedges, woods, churches, farms, villages wrapped in the soft cellophane light of a spring morning.

As we climb, the sun climbs and warms our faces. We are surrounded by open country dotted with clumps of brambles and thorn bushes. Here there are Whitethroat with their raspy song as they take off and dart from one clump of brambles to another. Linnets flit from bush to bush. Someone spots a Yellow Hammer, and we stop to listen to the ‘chink, chink’ of its call.

Almost at the top of the hill, a pause for breath and in the clear blue sky is a Buzzard, up early. This one has not waited for the air to warm so he can use the thermals to lift into the sky. We leave him and as we plunge into the shade of the woodland that runs along the top of these Downs a Green Woodpecker yaffles across the valley. Amongst the trees Andrew picks up the call of a Stock Dove. Often in pairs they nest in holes in trees. Finally, he pauses to listen to the song of a Gold Crest, too high up in the branches to see and too high pitched for me to hear.

Sadly, we begin our walk back. Down from the hills, through the valley, along Nightingale Lane and back to the village. Back to noise and cars and people. Back to reality.