Dawn Chorus Day

Yes, Dawn Chorus Day was on 1st May, but I missed it.

But look, every day is Dawn Chorus Day here, and the birds often wake me up.

And this is what Francis Kilvert recorded in his diary in May 1870. It's almost as wonderful as the birdsong itself.

Saturday, 7 May 1870

At 3 a.m. we began to see the dawn through the stable window and Richard who had been out in the stable yard came in saying, ‘The cuckoos be at their work again.’ I went out. It was not cold but a fresh morning, cloudless, and there was a broad suspicion of light in the East. I listened for some time. Then I heard a cuckoo near Peter’s Pool, then another near Cilblythe. They had only just begun singing. It was just cock crowing, and the cocks joined in. The cuckoos began to call thicker and faster, and now and then might be heard from the woods the hooting of the owls. Presently the cocks ceased for a while; then the owls gradually stopped altogether and the cuckoos had it all their own way.

At 3.15 the birds woke and burst into song, full chorus almost simultaneously. I never heard birds sing like that before. I did not know they could sing so. No one who has not heard the first marvellous rush of song when the birds awake and begin to sing on a fine warm May morning can have any conception what it is like, or how birds can sing. No idea can be formed from the singing of birds in the day time of what they can do in the early spring morning. It was wonderful, ravishing, passing anything I could have imagined. Round Cae Mawr and in the great pear orchard behind the school, the whole air was in a chorus of song and the air shook thick with rapture and melody. The air was so full of sound that there was scarcely room for another bird to get a note in. From every tree and bush the music poured and swelled and every bird was singing his loudest and sweetest. The morning air was crowded with singing, and the matins, lauds and prime went up altogether like a cloud of melodious incense. Morning hymns sung in full choir. Truly, the time of the singing of birds is come.

So it was very curious to see and hear the night shading into morning and the birds of dark and light recognising the limits of their domain. The cocks at midnight; then the cocks becoming silent. The owls keeping up the cry of the night like watchmen. The cocks again at dawn cock crowing. The cocks ceasing again. The owls gradually becoming silent and giving way to the cuckoos who took up the watch, relieved guard and introduced the morning, heralding the dawn. Then the cuckoos suddenly drowned in the full burst of melody when their cuckooing had awaked the singing birds. For the cuckoos seemed to be tolling the chapel bell and calling all the other birds to their orisons. The owls mourned for the departing night. The cuckoos and the singing birds rejoiced in the morning. Thus God never leaves Himself without witness and some bird always keeps vigil and praises Him. I went for a walk by the pear orchard along the road as far as the mouth of the Old Forest lane, an ivy arch. The light broadened in the East, and I had the morning all to myself with the birds.