Nature's Melodic Alarm: The Dawn Chorus

The early birds that gladden the heart

For extra tranquility, try listening to this letter—this week the sounds are woven into the words below.

Spring is confused, and turns out to be Summer-Spring. Doubtless we-will-pay-for-it-later. Under a clear sky, temperatures swing a wide pendulum, from -4C at night to 18C during the day. The range has rarely been so noticeable: frost to sunburn. A hard time for Nature’s children.

How do you see: moon through cotton grass, or sunlight glinting off water?

Images or words? Chicken or egg? Which comes first? It varies, but surprisingly for a visual artist, it is often the words. This week’s letter wrote itself in the early hours of Saturday morning, 5 April 2025.

5.45am
               The blackbird’s song pulls me from sleep early
            The blackbird’s song pulls me early from sleep
         The blackbird’s song, early, pulls me from sleep
      The blackbird’s early song pulls me from sleep
   Early, the blackbird’s song pulls me from sleep.
Each day, a little earlier.

My own notes are tuneless. I thought to slip back to sleep as I listened, but the blackbird had other ideas. Or perhaps I simply needed to listen.

I think it largely a solo performance. My ears are poor receivers: this diva is backed by bold robin, pugnacious wren, rusty great tit. Later, others… not so early. And for a first time, willow warbler. Last year they sang so loudly, so sweetly in the garden, lifting the heart each time I stepped outside.

It takes me a journey 400 miles north—my own small migration—to tune in to the vast journeys that birds make. Beyond those we are familiar with—swallows and swifts—are others that I have infrequently or never knowingly encountered.

Where do the warblers go?

The short answer is far to the south, heading beyond the Sahara to mainly the Ivory Coast and Ghana. Some journeys can be more than 15,000km and, based on ringing data, the journey time can take eight to twelve weeks. The Willow Warbler is not much bigger than a Wren and weighs about 8g. It is a delicate little bird adapted to feeding on insects from bushes. With its apparently weak and slow flight, it undertakes one of the longest and arduous journeys of any land bird involving long sea and desert crossings where it cannot feed.¹

A translucent flake of pine bark catches sunlight and shadow. A canvas, inverted.

Morning stirs grey matter. I continue to write, all thought of sleep abandoned.

As the green leaves and panicles of lilac expand a little more each day, 
they seem to release…
music, a cantorial? An invocation?

Beyond drive for reproduction, defence of territory
tell me there is no other reason for this melody,
its inflection, articulation, repetition,
the way notes are birthed by lungs, play vocal chords, roll around and ripen before spilling from yellow bill
tell me that there is no pleasure in the song,
the singer,
in that gold mascara’d ebony eye.

And suddenly:
silence, an emptiness of air,
voided barren as if the morning fabric is torn, bereft, 
and the song was but a dream.

Later I wonder what to use to accompany these words. Without recognising the synchronicity, I spend the next two days composing images in monochrome.

Of course, it had to be black… and white.

Pine cones, drily brittle, crunch underfoot

This week, this letter, is for the birds that gladden the heart—and for you. Thank you for being here.

Share, with generosity
Make this place
about more than you
Use it to uplift others
To remind the heart
that the world can be kind

Until next week,

If you enjoy reading and listening to my letters from the moss, a lovely way to say ‘thank you’, is to

PostScript

1.

It would have been a crime not to photograph these feathers in colour. However ‘common’ they may be here, I acknowledge each small life ended and the traces left that will in time become part of the moss. Here, the richly coloured and patterned feathers of a pheasant.

2.

This week’s share. Each day

Linda Clark

brightens Substack’s Notes with her photographs of birds, insects and flowers, often accompanied by insights into each.

All words and images are copyright © Michela Griffith 2025 except where otherwise noted

1. Willow Warbler on Migration - Arran Birding