Dawn Chorus

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 At this time of the year just before and after sunrise there is an outpouring of bird song that we call the dawn chorus.


The dawn chorus is getting started just now but is at its best a little later in the year when the resident songbirds are joined by all the migrants.
The purpose of all this singing is two fold. Firstly birds are advertising for a mate, and secondly they are notifying competitors that this is their territory.
The reason birds sing early in the morning is  because it is too dark to start hunting for food, and it is safer to sing in the poor light as you are less likely to be picked off by a predator. There is a second lot of singing around dusk but this is less marked.

Diary
Saw my first house martin of the season  today. Martin's winter in sub Saharan Africa and usually arrive with us just before the swallows. Quite a lot of the older houses (with eaves) have the mud nests of house martins. We have never had them nesting on our house, but I get good views of multiple nests at the railway station at Kirkby Stephen on the Settle to Carlisle line later in the season.
Large (50+) flock of goldfinches in our meadow this morning and a roe deer in the field behind the house.

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