I am writing this as, despite the very mixed weather that this year has provided, the first signs of the avian spring unfold. Rachel Carson, writing in the US in the 1960s, warned that the use of synthetic pesticides was causing unprecedented harm to the natural world, and her book entitled Silent Spring is credited with inspiring the grassroots environmental movement.
Although many of her predictions have proved to be founded on good science (she was a qualified marine biologist and zoologist by training), and the dramatic decline in many species is a reality, we have not yet reached the point of a silent spring. A walk out in the early dawn just about anywhere in France will reward the listener with a variety of birdsong, reminding us that the rigours of winter are receding, and once more the important business of passing genes on to the next generation is stirring the hormones of the natural world.
There are in fact some bird species that continue to sing versions of their song throughout the whole year; one of these is the easily recognised robin (rouge-gorge). If you listen carefully enough to a robin in winter and one in the spring breeding season, it is possible to detect a more melancholy lilt in winter, but it is a subtle difference. It is a sweet tinkling song, sometimes likened to a trickling brook, an image that helps me to recognise it.
There is evidence that the robins that we see in our gardens throughout the year here in France are not the same sedentary birds all year round. The ones we see in winter have in fact migrated from the harshness of Scandinavian winters, and the consequent lack of food, whilst some of “our” breeding robins, mainly females, go further south to Spain and even North Africa. In reality there is a mix of origins. Robins, despite the somewhat friendly reputation they cultivate as they accompany gardeners digging winter vegetable beds, are actually very territorial birds, quite aggressive in defending their chosen area.
Birdsong is primarily a definition of a chosen territory, selected for its availability of food resources and suitable nesting habitat. It was traditionally believed that it was always the male bird that sings, and this idea still holds mainly true, at least in the northern hemisphere. However, it is now known that many female birds also sing, and just as melodically as the males. Although we cannot identify a male robin from a female by sight, certainly the birds themselves know, and will judge partners by the qualities of the song, choosing to share a territory with a mate as a result.
Territorial boundaries will be defined, and anybody watching a pair of male blackbirds facing off and then chasing each other away will witness a boundary dispute. If you see a squashed mass of black feathers on the road, it is often the result of the commitment put into these disputes, to the point of fatally ignoring the dangers of passing traffic.
Another species that is vocal throughout the year, but clearly more so in the mating season, is the nuthatch (sittelle torchepot). Very dominant in the sounds of our mill garden – and also on the feeders where they swoop and cause other birds to flee in alarm – their calls are loud, piercing and highly varied.
Not birds that lack confidence, they have a striking black mask across the eyes and a fiercely pointed beak, which they sometimes use to break up the peanuts they wedge into the bark of a suitable tree. Sometimes confusing in profile with treecreepers (grimpereau) as they clamber up a trunk, nuthatches are capable of climbing down, which a treecreeper cannot do.
Nuthatch calls are loud and piercingJonathan Kemp
Nuthatches have a particular nest-building strategy, in that they use mud to reduce the size of entrances to nesting boxes to impede the access of predators, typically woodpeckers or pine martens.
Of course no list of spring’s songsters can ignore the ubiquitous great tit (mésange charbonnière). Sometimes heard even in January on a bright sunny day, these are the commonest birds to be found on my bird feeder. Their prevailing song is recognisable as a repetitive two-syllable “teacher-teacher”, somewhat mechanical; a friend once asked what bird sounded like an alarm clock. However, they have a rich repertoire of calls, and it can be confusing to identify all the variations.
A little further away from the house, but present in the nearby woods, can be heard another precocious bird species: the song thrush (grive musicienne). Often perching high in the tops of the trees, its powerful voice can sometimes be heard even in February.
The way to distinguish a thrush from its close cousin, the blackbird (merle), is to listen out for the repetition: a thrush creates a phrase and then repeats it two to four times before changing to another group of notes. Its song is sharper and more high-pitched than that of a blackbird, whose familiar song is more melodic – a clear, loud fluting at a slow tempo, with longer phrases than the thrush.
A song thrush has a powerful voiceMichel Fernandez
In the photo above, it is possible to see the arrowhead spots on the breast, which are characteristic, and different from another thrush, the mistle thrush (grive draine), whose breast spots are rounded. It is also interesting to see that it is eating an ivy berry, an important food source because ivy berries ripen in February and March when there is very little else to eat.
When I first realised that birds are capable of singing as early as January, I was thrilled, because although many creatures are simply concentrating on survival and finding enough food, here they are already thinking of the coming season, sending out songs of hope for us all.
