03-Apr The Birdsong Awakening

The award for best songster of the month might equally go to robins, blackbirds, song thrushes or any newly arrived blackcaps. All these birds are famous by world standards for their songs and can all now be commonly heard in London’s gardens. In other habitats there are other world famous songs also worth seeking out e.g. tree pipit, wood warbler, woodlark, curlew, redshank and cuckoo.

Traditionally it is in the first week of April you should hear your first chiffchaff, in the second the willow warbler, the third the blackcap and in the fourth the garden warbler. With more and more birds remaining with us rather than migrating because of our warm winters, this is often now not the case. The order in which they are heard will often remain the same, but the dates will differ.

The last two of these songs are notoriously confusing for birdwatchers. The blackcap’s song is a series of clear warblings, with some pure notes. It has a wavy character, including the so-called ‘cuckoo notes’. These are particularly clear, pure, fluty notes often delivered at the end of phrases and are reminiscent to some extent of a cuckoo. The garden warbler in contrast tends to sing for longer and without interruption. It also has no cuckoo notes. Its song has been compared to a babbling brook because of the continuous rapid flow of notes. As always, the situation is confused by lazy, inexperienced birds which don’t deliver their full song. Excerpts alone of both songs are notoriously difficult to separate, especially as the garden warbler arrives just as the leaves start to hide him. His is a much rarer sound in London than the blackcap’s and he tends to move around a lot as he delivers it.

On the outskirts of London, pheasants can be heard calling from woodland edges and woodpeckers drumming from within. In any damp woods on the northern tip of London it may still be worth listening out for the rare calls of marsh tit and willow tit. In gardens, robins, tits, wrens, hedge sparrows, blackbirds and thrushes can all now be heard much more. In large parks they may be joined by goldfinches, chaffinches and greenfinches. Magpies are also more vocal, the male even making mewing calls to the female as he persistently courts her. These courting assemblies of magpies can involve several birds with many unusual vocalisations. The massive, complex vocabulary of great tits of up to fifty different calls is often too much to cope with, even for hardened birdwatchers.

In more open areas it is worth listening out for the rarer sounds of linnets and yellowhammers. The wing-humming and pee-wit calls of lapwings are also still being heard. Another special sound continuing from March is the ‘drumming’ of snipe. This bizarre sound has been compared to a boy blowing through a comb covered in paper. It is produced by stiff tail feathers which can be seen extended as the birds make loops in their display flights.

Other birds singing, but not already mentioned, include reed and sedge warbler, tree creeper, tree sparrow, nuthatch, meadow pipit, lesser whitethroat, wheatear, grasshopper warbler, redstart, sandpiper, ringed plover, swallow and house martin.

One last famous sound of April, which might return after a long absence, is the whistling of otters. Being nocturnal in their habits, these almost human-sounding whistles used to be often heard in the dead of night near quiet stretches of running water. There may still be a possibility along the more remote tributaries of the River Wey and River Lea.

One last famous sound of April, which might return after a long absence, is the whistling of otters. Being nocturnal in their habits, these almost human-sounding whistles used to be often heard in the dead of night near quiet stretches of running water. There may still be a possibility along the more remote tributaries of the River Wey and River Lea.