206 Dawn birdsong in the leafy ravine

Full Episode description

Meteorological spring is approaching. Mornings are getting lighter. Song birds have found their voices, and though it’s still early in the mating season, are already decorating the hour around daybreak with mellifluous sound. In a few short months, it will peak.

Fast-forward to a May day. Far below the microphones, moorland water flows in a white noise sheen along the bottom of the precipitously steep wooded valley. Up here, tied to the stout trunk of a tree, growing out of the 45 degree slope, everything within the valley is audible. Every bird. From every tree. Singing, out across the empty space. Audible, spatial, and richly resonating. And almost completely free of anything made by people.

* In celebration of the beauty song birds give to the soundtrack of our outdoor lives, from now until the end of June, we’re sharing this after daybreak segment of an overnight recording we made in May 2021, in a steeply wooded ravine above Todbrook reservoir, on the Cheshire-Derbyshire border. The time was around 5am. We’re hoping to travel back to this exact location soon to re-capture this same magical soundscene. Want more? Listen to episode 89 and episode 160 from this same overnight recording.