The first Sunday of May is International Dawn Chorus day. I found out about this a month or so ago, and then I was at a RGS talk on Tuesday, and one of the speakers, Tor McIntosh mentioned that it would make a low-key slow adventure and reminded me of it.

So, at 4:45 this morning, my alarm went off, and we were in our local park by sunrise. We did get to hear a lot of birdsong. And it wasn’t drowned out by the sounds of traffic. We also saw a couple of squirrels.

I made a 15-second audio recording of the birds I could hear. There are quite a few Herring Gull squawks in there!

And then Richard spotted a fox sitting on the wall that divides St Nicholas Rest Garden from Clifton Terrace. It stayed there quite a while watching us, while we watched it. And then Skitters went to investigate, and it slid off the wall and slunk off.

The highlight of my first dawn chorus outing was a fox sighting. It was totally worthwhile getting up at dawn to hear the birds without them competing against the usual sounds of the city. It was a lovely experience.