Where are the birds?

[Tweedledee]

Had the bedroom windows open all night due to the heat and was woken up by some rhythmic screeching noises like some bird being attacked at about 5am. After a couple of minutes the noise stopped and I didn't get back to sleep, but lay there listening for over an hour and did not hear any birdsong. Not a single twitter, chirp or whistle, just silence and the sound of the odd car on the main road in the distance and the occasional sound of a wood pigeon. I live in probably the leafiest part of Mansfield with large trees, hedges and bushes in every garden, currently overgrown with foliage. I'm not normally up this early, but remember being woken up several times last year by a very noisy but pleasant dawn chorus of many different bird calls. I'm now sat in the garden with a cup of tea and have heard just one bird a few gardens away!

I presume this is the result of the cold start to the year?

Has anyone else experienced this lack of birdsong?

[BAZ]

The dawn chorus is around half three round here, and still going strong. There is a distinct lack of birds though, and it may be down to the heat, but more likely the annual moult has started. If I was a bird going through a full moult, I wouldn't shout too loud either. Even the wood pigeons have vanished, they make a right noise first thing early in the morning.

 

http://www.garden-birds.co.uk/information/moulting.htm

[Guest devil74]

We seem to have plenty of song on our back..it is laden with birds mind. I walked the other morning and there was a lovely little flock of about a dozen goldfinches chirping away. Takes me back to the days when me and my brother used to breed british finches. Dam the bloody bullfinches were difficult to breed...and could never find the nest, so crafty. 

[+RonC]

Martyn is right, once the moult has started the birds quieten down a lot. Birdsong is mainly territorial and as most birds no longer need to proclaim this they cease to call. Birds with a second or late brood may still sing however and youngsters will be calling the adults for food but July and August are usually the quietest months in the UK.

I have been birding over 20 years and rarely bother to go out in July/August although we counted 11 Red Kites yesterday from Witney to home in Lincolnshire!

 

Cheers

Ron

[Tweedledee]

Thanks very much for your replies and information.

[Guest Tweedledum]

Hi Pete,

 

Back in the land of nod!. You can have all the birds from our garden, dawn chorus 3am. And the nesting blackbirds in the tress by the summerhouse!!.

[Tweedledee]

Hi Damian,

Hope you heard the birds during an observing session at 3am, rather than having them disturb your sleep

Cheers,

Pete.

[cosmic dave]

Well you learn something new every day.