10-June June’s Vanishing Birdsong

However, this can be all the better for hearing rarer songs. Redstart, tree pipit and marsh warbler are all still singing and their calls were often easily ‘drowned out’ earlier. This is also a good time to listen for mimics as some birds are now including phrases and local sounds that they have learnt from their immediate surroundings. Most have a greasy, exhausted appearance after all the rigours of rearing a family. Jackdaws are the exception and are still being very noisy particularly around old buildings.

In gardens, starlings have fallen silent. Blackbirds and thrushes can be heard all month, but the quality of their songs diminishes as the month progresses. In the quieter conditions, the songs of the dunnock, greenfinch and goldfinch can all now be heard more clearly. At the beginning of June robins and wrens are quite vocal but they also tend to fall off quickly. Woodpigeons and stock doves continue to coo and crows, jays and magpies all have the occasional outburst. Pied wagtails passing through gardens are still communicating with their famous ‘chiz-zick’ calls which has lead Londoners to call them Chiswick flyovers. Their soft, intimate calls are usually accompanied by a little dance as well as some delicate wing fluttering.

In mixed woodlands there is more to hear. Chiffchaff and blackcap dominate the soundscape with willow warblers on good years occasionally joining in. In places within the Lea Valley the garden warbler may also be heard. Green woodpeckers are still laughing in the early part of the month, but then fall silent with the other woodpeckers. Flight calls are greatly diminished but contact calls to fledglings are all still common enough. Although tree creepers, nuthatches and all the tits are silent, redstarts when present continue to call. In pinewoods there is much less sound, although chaffinches may still be noisy in early June. The thin ‘needle-like’ song of the goldcrest may still be heard throughout the month, usually from somewhere high in a pine tree. Buzzards may be ‘mewing’ overhead and pheasants still call defiantly from the edges of woods.

Cuckoos are said to start stammering this month, their familiar ‘cuckoo’ changing to ‘cuck- cuckoo’. They don’t stammer for long as they all tend to fall silent by the end of the month. Nightingales sing for a mere eight weeks and towards the end of this period their outbursts become more furtive and spasmodic. Open countryside, downs and heaths all still offer opportunities. There may even still be a chance of hearing the ‘jangling key’ song of the corn bunting or even the softer calls of a woodlark.

The alarm calls of wheatears and whinchats can now be distinguished more easily with fewer other sounds around to confuse them Both are double notes. The wheatear sounds like two glass beads knocked together as compared to more of a “hugh hugh” sound from the whinchat. In open areas the birds most likely to be heard are skylarks, yellowhammers and linnets. Linnets are said to be the last bird that should be caged on account of their preference for really wild places. Their jolly twitters, buzzing and occasional twangs can still be heard in the wilder areas along the edge of the lower Thames. Skylarks are still ‘shivering with joy’ and yellowhammers, when present defy the trend and call persistently the whole month. They are generally noticed more now on the tops of bushes, totally ignoring humans as well as any local traffic. Meadow pipits can also still be heard without much effort, but the star of the open heath is the churring nightjar which is in the middle of its song period. Wheatears are known to call late in the day, followed by nightjars, before owls take over in the night.

Where there is a little more scrub, whitethroats are still scolding passers-by with their harsh, grating churrs. They have three kinds of song and twenty five different call notes. Lesser whitethroats, which like similar places, now just produce an inward low warbling sub-song, often omitting the wren-like rattle that generally makes them easier to recognise. From deep within shrubs they also produce some mouse-like sounds.

Where there are sufficient reeds and open water there is still a lot of noise coming from reed buntings, reed warblers and sedge warblers. The latter may even be heard at night. In more marshy conditions there is always the slim possibility of grasshopper warblers or even a snipe.

In open water, great crested grebes are still producing their banjo notes and little grebes are still ‘peeping’. Overhead swifts are still screaming as they chase each other or choose to harass brooding females at their nesting sites. If the weather is unseasonably cold, these birds are known to stop sleeping on the wing and gather instead on warm walls, where they huddle together to keep warm.

June is also a good time to hear the croaking, frog-like calls of woodcocks as they go ‘roding’ i.e. making an aerial circuit around their territory at tree height.

There are usually sightings of them in Epping Forest. The quintessential sound of summer is the famous ‘turring’ call of the turtle dove which tragically now is almost never heard. The calls of the marsh warbler are considered the second most complex of all, after the great tit. These birds may now only be heard by one or two Londoners in some remote locations where they are hanging on. Corncrakes are said to have abandoned London during the first world war. Their loud ratchety ‘crux crux’ calls used to be heard in the early part of the night with many Londoners in this case justifiably complaining that they were quite unable to sleep.10-June Bird Song 09