January Birdsong

Nature notes for the month to come . . .

I’m not sure quite when we can expect to see the first snowdrops, but very often they begin to peep through in January, as a reminder that spring is making its first feeble inroads into winter. But really, spring is still a distance away - so when on a mild but still morning in December I ventured out just about as the sun was thinking about rising, I was surprised to hear something of a dawn chorus from the wood behind our house.

Robins and thrushes do sing through the winter, and most of the voices I heard that morning were theirs. Having said that, pretty much as soon as the daylight begins to increase in length, the hormones of our garden birds will be working to get them ready for the breeding season ahead. Light-detecting cells in the brains of our birds will have registered the changing daylength, so that resident birds begin to think about pairing up. Given suitable conditions, they may begin to nest well, thus stealing a march on their summer visitor rivals.

And the dawn chorus will be one of ths early signs of this. More and more bird song can be heard as we travel through January, till by the month’s end, there’s something of a chorus. That’s a sure sign of the changing season, for the birds will be beginning to sing properly, claiming territory and challenging rivals.

The most territorial of our garden birds, robins and wrens for example, ill be among the first to let rip, but they’ll be joined by blue tits and particularly great tits as we get into the month, especially if we get a few fine days. On warmer days dunnocks will join them - the dunnock has a weak but quite sweet song, uttered in short phrases as it moves from perch to perch.

Song thrushes and blackbirds will have been singing, off and on, for a while, though maybe it will be the skirmishes between male blackbirds that are most obvious. Once the blackbirds are singing seriously, though, there’s no finer sound. Where we are, for some reason, we get very few starlings, which is a shame, because I do enjoy their songs, which involve some quite strange sounds and fair amount of mimicry. TV aerials are a favourite vantage point.

But none of them will have much time to do this. In fact, early birdsong and good garden feeding are closely connected. The short and cold days requite birds to spend most of their time finding enough food; the easier we make that, the more chance they have to sing. Every day a small bird must find enough food to lay down fat reserves for the night to come - starvation is always just around the corner. Tiny birds like goldcrests and wrens need to spend every moment of daylight feeding, and blue tits and siskins will need to feed for perhaps nine-tenths of each day. Mortality rates can be huge when hard winter weather strikes. So our help with food really can help to bring spring in a little early!