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Greg Morgan

There seems to be a 'day' for just about everything now but International Dawn Chorus Day is of particular importance as it helps bring people together to focus on the nature that is literally on their doorstep and hopefully make them appreciate it all the more. Over the past 50 years the UK has lost over 40 million birds and the focus for environmental charities has never been greater.  

One of the few positives to come out of the current coroanvirus situation is the added awareness it has shone on the natural world. I have never heard birds talked about so much on Radio 5 Live!  It is vital that we grab this renewed awareness in people and help it grow. I was inspired today to see, via social media, so many people up at 5am sharing their experiences of the amazing spectacle that is the dawn chorus, which, to some extent, goes on every single day but is particularly noticeable at this time of year in the breeding season.

I too got up in the hope of sharing a glorious Ramsey sunrise and a wealth of morning song from the garden....it was raining. Nevertheless the resident oystercatchers were in good voice and before long a raven (the true bird of Ramsey given the Vikings named the island 'Hrafns-ey' (Raven's Isle) during their forays into Wales which eventually ended up as 'Ramsey' - Ynys Dewi, the Welsh name (David's Island) didn't come into use until later in history). Anyway I digress! In addition there were snippets of a migrating willow warbler treating us to a burst of song along with some visiting goldfinch (neither species have ever bred but it's now May so who knows?....)

For those of you not on Twitter here are the links to the videos I posted this morning - just click on them to take you to our Twitter page and enjoy early morning Ramsey

Click here for the oystercatchers post

Click here for the raven post

In addition I posted a snippet from our Manx shearwater trail camera from a few nights ago - I figured 03:30 was close enough to dawn and who's to say a Manxie's raucous screeching can't be classed as 'song'?! In this clip the regular male bird (in the burrow entrance) is seeing off the would be usurper outside - you can tell they are both male birds from the high pitched tone of the call, females are much deeper and have a different rhythm

And to finish the day we had our first spotted flycatcher of the year in the garden bringing the year list so far to 77