From yelling 'stick together' to 'it's all about me!'
It’s a day where the distance is hidden, the close is blurry and grey and so as I head down the Saltcot Loaning, I lean more to using ears than eyes. We love to label and compartmentalise times of year but today fits no man-made season: my ears tell me it is part winter, part spring.
Winter is all about the big crowd noise – the mad pan pipe orchestra of whooper swans, the pockets of piping teal, the skeins of yapping and winking geese. Their noise is all about keeping together, staying in the crowd – they do just about everything together en masse in their winter, feeding, flying, roosting...
But for others, the season is changing and the yelling becomes all about me. It is February so only the early songsters have started but there are song thrushes, chaffinches and robins singing from the hedge tops. It is early in their breeding season so they seem a bit rusty and unconfident. The song is blowing through the tubes but not yet the fluent broadcast intended. I can see males of all species puffing out their chests, holding their ground, starting the push away of rivals, the pull in of mates.
male chaffinch by Rebecca Watret
The cocktail of bird song changes on an almost daily basis as winter visitors leave, summer visitors arrive and all vocalists get in their stride. Today’s? A still, warm wet day in February, a mixture of winter and spring. But tomorrows is sure to be slightly different.
Words by David Pickett
Feature image of robin singing by Alex Hillier
