Dave Fawcett describes a walk to record the birdsong at first light by members of the Echoes Of Old Shoreham soundscape project.
It’s about 5 a.m. on the first Sunday in May. A little group of us are dotted around Mill Hill, tuning into the soundscapes created by the bird song around us.
We met in the dark by the Lych Gate. First off were the uplifting bursts of Robin song which broke the early morning hush as we passed under each roadside tree as we started our journey up from “The Street”.
In the denser, more wooded dimness of the copse the deeper soulful voices of blackbirds soon became the signature tune. Wrens explode into song with a burst of confidence, despite their tiny size. A joyful, liquid trilling, suddenly accelerating into rattling buzz of notes.
Out on the open grassy downland, there’s the wonderful sound of skylarks calling from all directions. There’s so many, it’s almost disorientating to try to pinpoint whether they’re airborne yet or still hunkered down amongst the turf. I’m hearing them in a 180 degree sweep from my left ear right around to my right ear, but also from higher above and lower down, due to the undulating lie of the land. For me, this is such a treasured, characteristic sound of our local surroundings. And likewise, the rook, with their ever varied croaky repertoire, as they flap overhead unhurriedly, on their commute from wherever their nearest rookery may be up here (we have a fantastic one in the trees near the Towers in Upper Beeding where I live).
There’s something timeless about being up here before, during and after sunrise, getting deeply immersed in this chorus around us, in all its shifting variety. The whitethroat – a scratchy chatterbox perched on one of the bushy elders where the slope falls away down towards the valley below where the meanders of the river reflect like a mirror on this calm start to our day. The simpler, repetitive cheeps tweets of great tits and chiff chaffs. The happy twitters of goldfinches, alighting briefly on in the higher treetops, then a more anxious twitter as they decide to move on.
Back down at the tollbridge, I warm up with a flask of coffee and nibble cheese and crackers while a whimbrel tiptoes delicately across the mud, using that long curved break to seek out small creatures and gulping them down with relish.
Find out more about Echoes of Old Shoreham and other Capturing Old Shoreham projects at the FOldS Midsummer Fair on 21 June or email folds@oldshoreham.org.
Capturing Old Shoreham is supported by the National Trust and Changing Chalk Community Grants Scheme funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund.
Banner photo by Wendy Hill
Very vivid & alive – I almost feel as if I were there!