Dawn chorus from 1976

[OneBusyFinch]

Sharing this article - it includes a recording of birdsong from 1976

So sad. And it will only get worse with more and more land being cleared for development. Humans are arseholes.

Shifting baseline syndrome is a real thing. You just have to read the threads on the recent heatwave to see that people just accept whatever they see around them today as the norm.

We need more trees, hedges and messy gardens.

Birds need insects.

It's nearly Bees Needs Week where you're encouraged by the government to think about these 5 simple actions that anyone can take to help pollinators:

1. Grow more nectar rich flowers, shrubs and trees. Using window or balcony boxes are good options if you do not have a garden.
2. Let patches of garden and land grow wild.
3. Cut grass less often.
4. Do not disturb insect nests and hibernation spots.
5. Think carefully about whether to use pesticides.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/bees-needs/bees-needs-campaign

Without bugs you don't have birds.

I was ready to say dawn chorus where I live is fab but listening to that has shocked me. A marked HUGE difference and a sobering thought

Yes! It surprised me too - although I only hear mine from inside the house. I might get up and go out and listen one morning (middle of the night)

Wow - it really was a dawn chorus!

Shocked me too . Thank you @MsGreying for sharing the Bees ‘ Needs Week info

Councils think throwing a few trees up is the answer when it isn't. Returning nature to its natural ecological status is the real requirement.

Bump

When I stayed with my granny in Cornwall in the 70s the dawn chorus used to wake me up it was so loud, and had so many birds.

I live in Cornwall now and we do have quite a good dawn chorus but I often miss it as I've put earplugs in to block DHs snoring

Thank you for sharing this wonderful article. We have blackbirds, a robin, variously sparrows and bluetits and LOTS of wood pigeons. Sometimes finches. Crows, owls and geese and very occasionally a wren. But the birdsong does not sound like this.

It's definitely like that now where I live. Wakes me up at dawn.
Perhaps it depends whether you're in town or country?

Yes I used to be woken by the dawn chorus.

I grew up in a little village, with many garden trees and thick hedgerows, and it was incredibly loud.

There were a lot of blackbirds and song thrushes, and the thrushes used to crack snails on the concrete path outside my bedroom window. When I think back to revising for exams, that was my soundtrack.

1976 so much more beautiful. There used to be more insects too. I can remember that and im in my 40s. Sad that things are getting worse.

Oh yes, thrushes bashing seven bells out of some snail! We do hear it here sometimes but not this year, although goodness knows there are enough snails to feed an army of thrushes

I remember hearing crickets all the time in the summer. Don't remember when I last heard one

Ours also sounds similar to the 1976 one, we're rural as well.

Definitely depends where you live. Ours sounds exactly like this now - rural village, 2.5 miles from nearest A road, population of 280-ish people/around 100 homes, scattered over a 1.5 mile x 1.5 mile radius.

Some days it's louder than this. We are a 5 minute walk from woodlands though, and have dozens of trees around us...

When we lived in a town (12-13 years ago,) it was not loud though, and there were hardly any birds.

I’ve been using the Merlin app this week and it identifies so few birds. Quite sad.

(not promoting Merlin — saw Clarkson use it on his farm series).

I use Merlin too - it’s brilliant. The article also refers to Merlin

I use Merlin, I've been told it's unreliable sometimes but it seems fairly consistent to me. There's a thrush that seems to live in a tree nearby and it sings for hours every evening. I used to get thrushes bashing snails in my garden but not so much recently. This could be because the snails have gone.