Photo by Alamy
In the UK, it’s almost exclusively the males that sing, though recent studies reveal that females of many species also sing to their mates and nestlings, especially in the tropics.
But why sing at dawn? In fact, most songsters perform throughout the day, but they save their most forceful, committed singing for the early morning. This may be because there’s less human and other sound at that time and, being cooler, there are fewer insects and other food to find, too. Singing takes a lot of energy, so the male may as well do it when food is less available and his voice travels further in the still morning air. The end result is a torrent of glorious song cascading over park, garden and meadow in the early hours. By April, resident birds are joined by migrant singers such as the warblers who, as their name suggests, add their own melodies to the mix. By early May, the full choir of breeding songbirds is in voice.
Read more about the dawn chorus in our feature ‘The Early Bird’ from our May issue.
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