Dawn Chorus at Arnos Vale, 3^rd May 2010

 by Brian Iles

One brisk Spring morning in May this year, Arnos Vale Cemetery had the pleasure of hosting Mike Dilger for his Dawn Chorus at 4.30am.  The event sold out in a matter of days so another is planned for 2011.  Brian Iles was up bright and early and attended.  He wanted to share with you his experience, what happened and what birds were seen across the 45 acres of Arnos Vale's beautiful Victorian Garden Cemetery. Over to you Brian....... 

It’s five am in the cemetery, and I’m shivering.

Not through fright, however, or even the cold (because I’m well wrapped up).  It’s the prospect of  spending an hour or more of the Bank Holiday, 3^rd May, listening to the Dawn Chorus at Arnos Vale with Mike Dilger, the BBC wildlife man. This is a big thrill for me. Mike’s a dead ringer for my other favourite birder, local-boy-made good Simon King. Maybe it’s something to do with their similar hair styles, but I think it’s more the boyish enthusiasm. It’s so engaging. What an amazing hobby we all share that makes the years drop off like that.

And what a wonderful place to indulge it this cold May morning. ‘A 45 acre gem … in a tranquil garden cemetery’, says the leaflet, but the reality is much more.  This is an ancient wild wood close to the heart of Bristol, and we’ll never be able to thank the Trust enough for preserving it.

There are about forty other nut-cases prepared to get ‘shrammed’ to catch the early birds, but they don’t have to wait long for at least their hearts to be warmed. Just after five we all hear the unmistakeable refrain of a robin, with Mike pointing out that he’s caught it much earlier out of his bathroom window, whilst cleaning his teeth. In quick succession then come the voices of blackbird and song thrush, and my mind can’t help replaying the Willsbridge Mill song which commemorates an identical sequence down at Catscliff some years ago, when Des Bowring, the Wild Monty blogger, was our guide :

‘First a robin redbreast rhapsody has woken up the day,

Even better still old yellow bill has now begun to play.

Next Mavis is repeating all the news she has to tell,

And the rest are soon competing from their dens across the dell.’

Which reminds us of the old country name for the song thrush, and its repetitive song.

Although I’m such an old birder, I’m not very good with birdsong, but I must be inspired by the occasion because I begin to identify one after another of the songs that follow. From a conifer the notes of a goldcrest tinkle down. Then, as described by Mike in the first of many apt and amusing introductions, here’s one doing exactly what it says on the tin. ‘Chiff Chaff’.  If some of us are still half a sleep, we certainly aren’t, after a wren has let fly. It never ceases to amaze.  This loudest of noises from this smallest of birds. Soon the woods are alive with the sound. 

‘Look!’ calls Mike – because we are looking as well as listening - and I’m lucky enough to catch a glimpse of the sparrow hawk flying swiftly across, above the trees. ‘Flap, sail, long square tail’. This is good stuff. A couple of passing herring gulls laugh appreciatively.  Then we catch the warble of a blackcap from far away, and the scratchy monotone of a dunnock close by.  I’m puzzled why a lady says she gets confused between the two.  Mike gives her a lesson, deftly mimicking the songs, and tells her for good measure all about dunnocks, hedge sparrows and hedge accentors.  Three and the same. 

Farther up in the woods a great tit calls. Our mentor says ‘Tea-cher, Tea-cher.’ I’m a bit coy about addressing the great man yet, and I fail to say that I think it sounds like a bike pump.  He informs us that this largest of the tits has over forty calls, so that if you ever hear a bird you can’t identify, it’s very likely a great tit.  Hard on its tail a little posse of long tailed tits flit between two ash trees; I tell my neighbour we  call them LTTs.

Keeping close to the leaders as we trudge along one of the steepish paths, I hear the Arnos Vale rep. query whether a distant warble might be a garden warbler.  Mike stops, pricks his ears and listens intently. More likely to be a blackcap is the disappointing verdict.  Then three corvids present themselves in quick succession.  A carrion crow caws and flaps his way over, there is the flash of a jay’s white rump, making one or two of us jump to attention, then a bit later we witness a little drama as that arch-thief the magpie is verbally abused by a fearful blackbird.

The dawn chorus has been disturbed by these unmelodious intruders, but soon a woodpigeon soothes us all down, before a green woodpecker undulates across our view, making it clear it’s all a big joke.  These are my flights of fancy, as it were, but  this absorbing  hobby affects us all in different ways.

For example I think that the boring burring of a greenfinch is the song of spring – I must have made the association one lovely morning such as this.  Which can only be true as another fantasy, because it is in fact as grey and cold as a November pavement.  It’s just how it gets you.  The last bird we hear before we set off for the café is a chaffinch, of which Mike once more gives his impression for those not familiar with the little flourish of a song.  Once more I am too shy to announce my comparison, but it really does put me in mind of a medium pacer coming up to the wicket off a short run, and turning his arm over.

On the way down Mike displays his botanical knowledge, and I’m particularly grateful for him introducing me to two plants which he says are indicators of ancient woodland. One with a name prettier than its insignificant little yellow flower, the goldilocks buttercup, the other, woodland sedge. Well shut mah ahs – and imagine Kingswood Forest stretching from here to Pucklechurch a thousand years ago.

Over a cuppa inside the Spielman Centre, I come out of my shell and tap our expert guide about wintering blackcaps and ‘springing’ grasshopper warblers, the former seen in my garden from December to April, the latter heard on a scrubby hillside below the battle of Lansdown last week. Mike agrees that there may be different populations of wintering blackcap: the ones that  traditionally come to our gardens every winter, and those summer visitors that are beginning to stay on. As to grasshopper warblers, while they are not such numerous visitors these days, they are ‘about’, and may even be up the top of the cemetery where there are small bushes and a conifer fringe. It’s the only bird with that distinctive fishing reel sound that you’d find either up Lansdown or in this very cemetery.

Then comes the surprise invitation. Something it didn’t say on the tin. We are really going to get our moneysworth. Mike is about to set off up the top again, and those who want may follow him for an additional session.

I wish there was a perfect end to my story. That we heard the fishing reel, and also the distinctive soft sound of the bull finch - Mike’s favourite. We didn’t. But I will make it almost perfect with one of Mike’s anecdotes - about another bird we didn’t hear on this occasion - which demonstrates how a light touch can tickle your memory for ever after. Two novice birders are watching and listening to a chiff chaff  (with its so distinctive call). But how can you tell it’s not a willow warbler, one asks, if you can’t see the colour of its legs? 

Thank you Trust for opening so early, and thank you Mike for conducting such a memorable Dawn Chorus.