Dawn walks: London and Brighton
Plus Birdsong Academy on the radio
The clocks have fallen back and the sky is paling just after 6am. A couple of robins exchange thoughts across the hawthorns. It is still and cool, and the song is thin.
🌅 Now booking for spring 2025: Dawn walks in Brighton and London
By March, the dawn chorus will be swelling. Winter’s robin-songs joined with those of the thrushes, finches, ‘crests and treecreepers.
Join me to re-tune our ears together for the coming season.
We return to Stanmer Park for our first walk of 2025 (Saturday 8 March), followed by our first ever London event, at Wimbledon Common (Saturday 22 March).
On each walk we can expect to hear 25-30 different species of bird. We’ll share ways to recognise them by song, call and sight, and learn about their behaviour and ecology.
Both times we’ll make a special effort to find the elusive, but increasingly common, firecrest.
Tickets are limited to 10 places for each walk. There’s a £10 discount for paying subscribers to Shriek of the Week (use the discount code sent to subscribers, or contact me for details).
Wild sounds on local radio
Birdsong Academy is contributing to Our Earth Week on community radio this autumn.
This annual event aims to bring more environmentally-focused content to the airwaves, in sync with the latest round of COP climate talks.
Between 11 & 17 November local radio stations around the UK will be playing field recordings, interviews, documentaries and music themed ‘Sound of the Wild’, plus ten species profiles provided by Birdsong Academy.
If you think your local radio station needs more birdsong, let them know about it!
Find out more: Community Radio Environment Network.
New: Videos for forest schools
If you’re a forest school or bushcraft teacher, take a look at the content put together by Vicky Mew and the expert team at Red Squirrel Resources.
There are packs on game-playing, storytelling, whittling, rope-making and a ‘bird bundle’ of videos which feature me standing about in the woods, woven in with lots of great footage of the species singing, feeding, nesting and generally being birdy.
Autumn shrieks
Recently featured sounds over on Shriek of the Week:
Yellow-browed Warbler - quiz bit
Whooper Swan - wild hoo-hah
Pink-footed Goose - sweet shrieks
Coming next - that most enthusiastic of whistlers, the Wigeon.
That’s all for now. Thanks for reading (and enjoy the birds).
~ Charlie