I wasn’t going to bother with a dawn chorus this year, but I was in the wood just a few days ago and was surprised how much bird song there was. Normally at this time of the year the birds are beginning to fall silent, but the cold and wet spring weather has made everything late, and the birds are singing, so I thought, why not?

Well, one reason – and something that hadn’t occurred to me – is that in June it gets light a lot earlier. Who’d have thought it’s already getting light at 03.30?? That’s crazy, but I got up then anyway.

Here’s a sample. Perhaps not as much variety as previous years but still pretty overwhelming, especially as usual from the song thrushes. No owls this year though:

The following is a garden warbler (poorly named, as you’d need a pretty large garden to find one in it):

It’s a new bird for me and unremarkable to look at (see image at top), but having got to recognise its song in the last few days, I hear more than one singing in the wood. It sings in 3-4 second bursts, with similar length gaps in between. Listen out for it. This one was recorded from the southern ride.

The garden warbler is closely related to the blackcap and likes the same dense undergrowth – just the kind that brambles provide. We may not be so keen on all those brambles (apart from their fruit of course), but I’m sure they account for the boom in blackcap numbers over the last few years. And now their relatives. So, well, perhaps those brambles are not so bad after all.

(You can also here the 2020 dawn chorus recording here.)