International Dawn Chorus Day - 4th May

Tomorrow is International Dawn Chorus Day. Many organisations, such as the county branches of the Wildlife Trusts will be hosting various dawn chorus walks tomorrow and throughout May, with experts on hand to help identify what's being heard. It'll be an early start - most of the walks are timed for about 5am, just as the dawn chorus is beginning to reach its crescendo.

I've been awake since 4am most days for the past few weeks. The robins are particularly vocal at that time. We also appear to have a female tawny owl calling out for a mate at the moment, so it's pretty noisy around here, even with double glazing. Once awake, I continue to doze until proper waking up time and I'm aware of the constantly changing chorus of birds until about 6.30am. The dawn chorus is the male birds way of finding out who from their rivals have survived the night. These are still quite chilly at the moment and any bird that hasn't fed properly the previous day is vulnerable. It also allows the birds to tell any female in the vicinity just how good a catch they are as they're a born survivor, plus warn any other males out of their teritory.

Before the internet really got going, I invested in the pictured book by the rather aptly named Geoff Sample. It has 2 CDs to help you identify the calls of around 200 birds of Britain and Northern Europe. It's arranged by habitat, so I just need to find the urban, garden and farmland sections to hear the calls of most of the birds around here. I can now find the same information on the internet of course, but somehow it isn't the same as Geoff's whispered voice telling me what's what. If you can't get to any of the walks, the BBC have been going around the country recording this year's dawn chorus. You can find what's down your way by flying over to this website and clicking on the area of the map that's nearest to you. Happy listening!

Comments

  1. this is my patch3 May 2008 at 08:28

    Thanks for the link for the dawn chorus, I love the birds, and really all part and parcel of the pleasure of gardening. How nice to have a resident owl, something I don't think we would see in our neighbourhood. Mr Blackbird always does a good job of waking us up, or the blessed magpies! x

    ReplyDelete
  2. Rose3 May 2008 at 12:24

    Thanks for such an informative post, VP. I've been wishing I could identify all the bird calls I hear around here. The chorus walk you mention sounds very interesting. I'm sure there are similar events held near me, but I am not a 5 AM sort of person! (The only reason I'm up this morning is because the cat sat on my head and chewed on my hair until I got up and let him out!)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Silly Goose3 May 2008 at 16:22

    Sounds fun, VP. But 5am is kinda early. Maybe I'll be up to hear some songbirds in my own garden tomorrow morning, though.

    Many songbirds across North America are declining rapidly. I'm hoping my gardens will make a difference.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Anonymous3 May 2008 at 23:34

    Hi VP. There's a five o'clock in the morning now?

    I was lucky enough to hear a nightingale last Spring down on the canal. I can only recognize a handfull of birds by their call and It'd be nice to know what all the other calls are. I did have an audio tape somewhere but I don't know where now. The book and CD look good.

    We have owls around where I live and it's lovely to hear them in the night. We also have what I think is a nightjar.

    My absolute favourites though are the jackdaws. I swear they're laughing. It's such a comforting sound.

    Simon

    ReplyDelete
  5. Sue Swift4 May 2008 at 08:24

    I'm regularly awake at five, which is when our resident blackbird strikes up. It's a lovely way to start the day.

    ReplyDelete
  6. VP8 May 2008 at 19:52

    Louise - only too glad to oblige!

    Rose - sounds just like what Jess does given half the chance. Do you have the American equivalent of the RSPB website to help with bird identification?

    Dirty knees - it is early, but the birds around here are waking me up anyway. And breakfast tastes so much better after you've been up a couple of hours...

    Simon - aaahhh nightingales. One of my favourite memories of being out in Mallorca at this time of the year was the nightingale in the tree right by our dormitory singing me to sleep. I'd love to hear a nightjar though.

    Sue - yes it is!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

I love hearing from you and welcome thoughtful conversations :)

Comments aiming to link back and give credence to commercial websites will be composted!

Your essential reads

That blue flower: A spring spotter's guide

Image
Spring is a prime time for blue flowers and my daily walks currently have several from the same plant family* lining the local footpaths. As I walked past the Donkey Field the other day, I overheard some children ask their parents** what the pictured blue flower was. It reminded me it's often mistaken for those other familial blues and this time was no different, as they said it was forget-me-not, instead of the green alkanet it actually is. As well as similar flowers, most of these plants are hairy in their nature, flower around the same time, and favour damp, shady places. Many of them are great for pollinators too, especially bees and this week's warm weather has certainly drawn them to these flowers. This makes it even more likely for these plants to be mistaken for each other and it's a great opportunity for me to put together a spotter's guide in case you find the same flowers on your outings. Staying with green alkanet, the key features which set it
Read more

Jack Go To Bed At Noon

Image
Last year this rather exotic looking flower appeared on mine and several other allotments for the first time. Having been stumped (again) by Mr Allotment Warden as to its identity, I rushed home to find out what it was. It's salsify, aka the marvellous Jack Go To Bed At Noon - named as such because its flowers always close by midday. Here you can see both open and closed flowers - making it seem even more exotic and alien than in the first picture. I think this must be the cultivated version because the flower in my Francis Rose Wild Flower Key looks exactly the same in form, but is bright yellow in colour and called meadow salsify . Its other common name is Goatsbeard, which must be a nod to the fantastic dandelion-like clock which forms the seed head. With 'parachutes' like those shown above, who knows how far our plotted plants came from. I rather like the photographic dissection of the seedhead found in this link . Salsify is edible: its lateral shoots and fl
Read more

Salad Days: Mastering Lettuce

Image
I've decided one of my salad challenges for this year is to grow as many lettuce varieties as I can, ready for the publication of my planned Factsheet* later on. The idea is to grow as many of the Tried and Trusted lettuce varieties last year's Salad Challengers helped compile, then provide a visual guide and as many lettuce facts as I can muster. So far I've found around half of those listed**. Then naturally whilst I was out searching - because such is the way with seeds - a number of other varieties found their way home too ;) A couple of weeks ago I sowed 22 varieties***. Just the simple act of sowing them has me intrigued. Why are some lettuce seeds black and others white****? They split into about half white to half black in my sample and as far as I can tell it's nothing to do with whether they're a type of cos, iceberg, or whatever. I sowed them indoors and popped them into a propagator on the windowsill. The soil's too cold outside for sowing
Read more

Red Nose Day - Gardening Jokes Anyone?

Image
The nation goes ever so slightly bonkers on Red Nose Day - hurrah! Previously, it's been very easy to join in - usually via a dress down day at work plus lots of people up to mad things at the station and in the office. Everyone smiling for once - it's a real feel good day and all in a good cause. This year's different - every day's a dress down day for me now - my friend L suggested yesterday that perhaps I could have a dress up day instead and whilst that's a good idea, I confess that ballgowns and tiaras don't really feature in my wardrobe: scruffy student's always been my favourite look. So my Red Nose Day contribution for this year is to compile a list of gardening related jokes. For each one (clean ones only please) you leave in the comments below, I'll make a donation of 50p to the cause. Here's a few for starters just to get you warmed up: Q Why do potatoes make good detectives? A Because they keep their eyes peeled. Q What did the grape
Read more

VPs VIPs: Derry Watkins of Special Plants

Image
Last week I had the pleasure of visiting Derry Watkins at her home, garden and nursery - the acclaimed Special Plants - just a few miles along the road from me. I first met Derry at one of her open garden days last year and was keen to find out more about her wonderful garden and running an independent nursery. She specialises in tender perennials and regularly goes on plant hunting trips to find new treasures, particularly in South Africa. As well as running Special Plants and opening her garden under the NGS scheme , Derry holds day courses at her nursery, hosts Special Tuesdays from April until September, lectures and has written a couple of books. How did you find your way from Connecticut to the UK? I'd started a biodynamic vegetable garden in Connecticut and we used to have people come along at weekends to help out. A particular young man turned up: he returned many times and at the end of the summer I married him. So it was all down to love? Isn't that the
Read more

The Resilient Garden

Image
  Part of Tom Massey's Resilient Garden at RHS Hampton Court I've been pondering VP Gardens a lot lately. Last year's drought conditions set me off initially, then our harsher than usual winter combined with this summer's flip and flop weather means the thinking continues. It's a huge topic which I freely admit I'm struggling to get my head around. Tom Massey's Resilient Garden  at Hampton Court recently  tackled this topic brilliantly and was a timely interlude which gave me much food for thought. There he encapsulated the detailed research he'd found which informed both his show garden and book of the same name. I think it's one of the most important show gardens I've ever seen. It's clear the way I garden needs to change so that I have my own resilient garden. I haven't worked out the exact details yet, but Tom's book plus a couple of others (see below), alongside the rainwater management handout from the show garden's  sponso
Read more

#mygardenrightnow: heading into summer with the Chelsea Fringe

Image
Ahhhhhh, that's better! I love walking through dewy grass in bare feet, not that there's much in the way of grass on my back lawn this weekend. My wild and woolly lawn has morphed into meadow of sorts this month, which even NAH admits looks attractive*. It's also proved a great source for my Flowers for mum project so far, yielding self-sown perennial cornflowers, lamb's ears, and lemon balm in addition to the blooms you can see. These originated from elsewhere in the garden, the ox-eye daisies must have blown in from the A350 nearby. * = he got very stroppy about the weeds aka self-sown foxgloves in the lawn one year, so he's come along a bit since then. Skimble's demanding to say hello to you too. He does enjoy the patio when it warms up. If the embedded video doesn't work try this link instead. The Nectaroscordum are a revelation. I planted the bulbs around 2 years ago, but it's only this year they've bloomed properly. The bee
Read more

Testing Times: Tomatoes

Image
  I've run a couple of tomato trials this year. The first is a revisit of the biochar trial with Oxford University I attempted some years ago (with a different organisation this time), and the second is a trial of a water gadget called Plantsurge which I was given to try at Malvern Spring Show earlier this year. Most of you have probably heard of biochar already and the claim that this inert, carbon-rich material can help soil fertility and plant health. The RHS information in the above link says results can be mixed, with reduced effects found in alkaline soils. This may help to explain the lack of difference I found in my previous trial as VP Gardens is on a lime-rich soil. Plantsurge is a different beast altogether. It's a strong magnet which is attached to a hosepipe as shown in the photo above. It's claimed that it softens water, with the result more like watering with rainwater. The higher nitrogen found in rainwater is thought to be beneficial to plants. Gardener
Read more

Chelsea Fringe 2014: Shows of Hands - Episode I

Image
The gloves NAH used to build the raised bed . The effects are L to R, top to bottom:  Original photo, Warhol, HDR, Green tint, B&W, Posterize, Boost, Cross process and Sepia Welcome to Shows of Hands - my Chelsea Fringe project for 2014! As you can see I've been having a bit of a play around in Pic Monkey for my first contribution. You're welcome to join in between now and 8th June 2014. The idea behind this year's project is to highlight the tool most precious to a gardener: their hands. How do I take part? It's simple. All you need to do is take a photo of hand(s) in a gardening context and then share it via your blog or other social media (such as Twitter or Facebook), then make sure I know you've done so. I've set up Mr Linky below for your blog contributions. The Chelsea Fringe photo on the right sidebar links to this post, so you can easily find it again when you're ready to add your contribution. If you share your photo on Twitter,
Read more

Make Use of Mildew

Image
On my garden patrol this morning I spotted some powdery mildew on a couple of my new Verbena bonariensis plants. I suppose it was almost inevitable as I prefer to grow my plants hard - this means no water for them unless they look absolutely desperate. This approach means plants root themselves more deeply and have a better chance of survival during spells of dry weather like we've had lately. However, it also means I run the risk of problems like today's, especially with any garden newbies planted late in the season. We've had a good drop of rain overnight, so this should help my plants survive. I'll mulch them later today to help lock in the moisture as it's water stress which encourages the mildew to take hold. I've also removed the infected leaves and sprayed the rest with a milky drink.* I'm also pleased to find there's a use for my infected leaves. Oliver Ellingham at Reading University has started a PhD - sponsored by the RHS - researchi
Read more