Nature News from RSPB Scotland

How to Listen to Birds Episode 2

• RSPB Scotland

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Stephen takes a trip to RSPB Scotland's Loch Leven nature reserve.  Site manager Vicky Turnbull and Assistant Warden Darran Dixon are on hand to help him identify what is singing in the woodland.

There's a little bird with a loud voice,  a melodic warbler and a thrush with a complex song.

Stephen also hears about some odd nesting decisions by Blue Tits at the reserve and discovers which bird sounds like a squeaky bike pump.

Let us know what you think about the series and what you've been hearing podcast.scotland@RSPB.org.uk

And don't forget to subscribe and leave a review wherever you get your podcasts.

Find out more about Loch Leven nature reserve here https://www.rspb.org.uk/days-out/reserves/loch-leven
Birdsong info on the RSPB website https://www.rspb.org.uk/birds-and-wildlife/a-z

Stephen Magee:

I'm Stephen Magee. Welcome to Nature News from RSPB Scotland and episode 2 of how to listen to birds. It's incredible the range there is and you're always learning every single year and it's great fun.

Darran Dixon:

Some people describe it as a laughing bandit, so it was like ha ha, ha, ha ha ha ha, I shoot you.

Vicky Turnbull:

Definitely a mere advantage to rise above the rest. You don't want to be a one trick pony.

Darran Dixon:

It's got a bigger back catalogue than Taylor Swift.

Stephen Magee:

t's quarter to six in the morning and I am in some woods near my house in Edinburgh and I thought I'd drag myself out of bed. And I am in some woods near my house in Edinburgh and I thought I'd drag myself out of bed. Get a bit of Dawn Corus and it is absolutely lovely and, to be honest, the joy of this is just the complete wash of sound really, and it's only 10 minutes walk from my house in central Edinburgh.

Stephen Magee:

It's pretty much the full boonah. So this is episode 2. I hope you enjoyed episode 1. If you haven't enjoyed episode 1, it's probably worth going back and listening to it before you listen to this one. If you don't want to do that, I'm not here to tell you how to live your life.

Stephen Magee:

This is a podcast for people who want to learn a little bit more about Birdsong. There'll be some ID tips in it. Hopefully there'll also be stuff in there for people who are already across Birdsong, or people like me who've started engaging with it but still have a lot to learn. And what we'll be doing across this series is going out with some of the amazing staff from RSPB Scotland listening out for what we can hear, trying to identify it, but also trying to understand why birds are singing and why birdsong is so important to us.

Stephen Magee:

So for episode two, I have been to our Loch Leven nature reserve, which is a brilliant place to visit any time of year, but particularly in spring, and my guides there were the site manager, Vicky Turnbull, and assistant warden Darran Dixon. I will be back in a bit with a little bit more housekeeping and some thoughts. I should make one small apology the little fluffy, weird thing that sits on top of the microphone that's a technical term on. Vicky's mic fell off just towards the end of the recording so there is a wee bit of wood noise at the end of her contribution, but I wanted to leave it in because she had good things to say. Hello and welcome to RSPB, scotland's Loch Leven nature reserve. I am with Vicky and Darran. Say hello, vicky and Darran, hello.

Darran Dixon:

Hello.

Stephen Magee:

We are going to take a wander. I don't want to be dismissive. I mean, there's a lot of like background noise here because there's a main road, right. There's loads of work going on like good work for nature, right. So shall we take a wander up into the wood and see if we can hear any actual birds?

Darran Dixon:

Let's do it Sounds good

Stephen Magee:

What's that? It's a blue tit. It's a blue tit. Yeah, I'm always amazed at like you'd think like a really big bird would make a really big noise and a really small bird would make a small noise.

Darran Dixon:

Blue tits are noisy yeah, but wrens are even noisier and they're the smallest. Yeah, I think maybe they just hide about and they're the smallest yeah. I think maybe they just hide about and they've got to make themselves heard above all the rest of the noises. But yeah, I don't think there's a I don't know, I don't think there's a correlation between.

Stephen Magee:

It doesn't seem to be a correlation. It's just like they're super noisy.

Darran Dixon:

But I mean that's when a blue tit, but you don't always tune into the call, I don't think or the song, and they're very adaptable where they nest as well. It's probably why you get them everywhere, because you know that they'll nest in litter boxes or they'll nest in really random little places, you know. So they're probably quite they're not so niche with their nesting habits, so that's probably why you can get them everywhere.

Vicky Turnbull:

Yeah, they did nest in our cigarette box outside the visitor centre one night.

Stephen Magee:

Well, like the thing for people putting smoked cigarettes into.

Vicky Turnbull:

Yeah, they were going in and out, they were having a great time. I mean, we had to obviously put up a sign to stop people using it for cigarettes, but yeah, I think they did pretty well in there, nice and cozy Very repetitive Ba-bit, ba-bit, ba-bit, ba-bit.

Stephen Magee:

What have we got there?

Darran Dixon:

That's a Coal Tit there it's almost like a squeaky bike pump. You know, that's how it's described, you know like that, and very simple as well. So it's quite. It's kind of like the Great Tit song, but a bit more.

Stephen Magee:

It's not as tuneful, because I always think, because Great Tit, according to all the you know, the bird books I had when I was a kid, says teacher, teacher, teacher, teacher, right, teacher, teacher, teacher, teacher, right. I never knew why it was teacher rather than something, but anyway, any word with two syllables in it, right, but that's almost like an inverted great tit, because it's going teacher, teacher, teacher, teacher, and it's quite different to the blue tit that we heard early on, isn't it? I mean, it's like so you might think, like well, you know, all the ones in the tit family are going to sound the same, but like that's really different to the blue tit.

Darran Dixon:

Yeah, I mean the blue tits has probably got a few more notes, but they're all quite. They're all quite simple songs, though you know, like you're not like the Wren, which just goes on for about 10 seconds. They're very just, short and repetitive. So I guess all the tit species are very kind of similar in that sense, but I don't know. Yeah, they've all got their own little features to them.

Vicky Turnbull:

I thought the great tits can mimic other things as well. They've got such a wide range of calls. Great tits are a nightmare.

Stephen Magee:

Sometimes, if you don't know what it is, it's going to be a great tit, to be fair, somebody I was out with doing something similar to this did say to me if you don't know what it is, it's probably a great tit. So mimicry is interesting, right, because mimicry like starlings, for example, I remember being on holiday and there'd been a starling. We were at the seaside. There was a starling that came and perched every morning on top of the house we were staying in and did an absolute dead-on impression of a curlew. I mean just amazing, right. And starlings are famous for you know car alarms, you know diggers, all this kind of stuff. What's going on with mimicry? Why is that an advantage?

Darran Dixon:

I would say maybe if this Starling or Song Thrush is mimicking lots of things it's heard, it's showing it what good a repertoire of notes it's got. So it's almost like look at me, I know all these different songs that I've learned in my life, you know, and it's not just got a simple little song, you know, it's got lots of different ones, songfroshes, I have hundreds of different tunes they can blast out and I guess it's all picked up. So, like I've heard Songfrush mimicking a red shank before, so it's obviously living in an area, or like in an area, where there's red shank about.

Stephen Magee:

So it's obviously taking that on board and good, because I was thinking when, when the starling was mimicking a curlew, I was like see, if you accidentally attracted a potential curlew mate, you'd get a fright right. That's a big bird, you know. I think you'd be in trouble. You know it can't be.

Vicky Turnbull:

Yeah, it must just be showing off how generally fancy you are, rather than yeah, showing how fit and healthy and capable they are and how they are better than all the other starlings or song thrushes yeah it's definitely in their advantage to rise above the rest. Don't want to be a one trick pony.

Darran Dixon:

I've got a bigger back catalog than Taylor Swift. You're going to shake that one off, shake it off, yeah, very good.

Stephen Magee:

That was really quite musical, just quite a complex little phrase. So, first of all, what was that? It's a black cap, black cap right, and a black cap is.

Vicky Turnbull:

It's a beautiful little warbler with a black head. Well, the male.

Stephen Magee:

And the female's got little brown cap as well, and so, like warblers, I guess you know it's in the name, aren't they? They're famous for song that's pretty, that is, it's quite. Were you saying that's the first one because it's the middle of April just now? Is that the first one you've heard this year?

Vicky Turnbull:

It's the first one I've heard.

Darran Dixon:

Yeah, it's the first one I've heard as well. Yeah, First on reserve.

Stephen Magee:

Yeah, yeah, and with warblers. Right, I'm going to say something which may annoy the big warbler fans. I sometimes feel like life is too short for warblers because they are largely small-ish greeny-brown birds that hide in undergrowth and are extremely difficult to tell apart. Now the blackcap. To be fair, the blackcap has got like a black or brown bit on its head. It does help us out a bit that way, but I suppose if you won't understand warblers, that's one of the things where you're going to have to learn a song, right?

Vicky Turnbull:

it definitely helps, certainly if you get a fleeting glimpse in a bush, especially once all the foliage is on the tree. It's really hard shift chaffing.

Darran Dixon:

Chiff chaffs and willow warblers are, like, notoriously difficult to identify without a good view, so usually if you can hear them singing, that's probably the best indicator of what you're actually looking at, unless you get a really good view and you know all the little minute things to look for.

Vicky Turnbull:

I think you've got to use everything you've got. If you get a good, look great. But you might as well just be patient, wait for it to open its mouth, and then you'll be like, ah, that's what it is.

Darran Dixon:

And they've probably got very different songs so they can distinguish each other too. I don't know if a chiff chaff sees a willow warbler and knows if it's a chiff chaff or a willow warbler. If it sees one, you know. So maybe the fact that they've got very different songs is useful to them as well, so they're not wasting their time. Well exactly.

Stephen Magee:

Otherwise we're just about chiff, chiff warblers, chiff willows, chiff willow chaffs. I think willow chaff is better than chiff willow yeah yeah, we'll go with that. As previously discussed, I'm just learning my way with birdsong, but even I know that we have just been listening to a song thrush right, you know, the clue is in the name. The thing that's amazing about that is the complexity of it, the fact that I mean to me it feels like no two phrases are exactly the same. Is that right?

Darran Dixon:

It does. It appears that way when you hear them. I think there's some that they might repeat. You know they'll have like that repertoire of different songs that they'll use and repeat.

Stephen Magee:

It's still going right. It's like the worst in a beautiful way, the worst children's toy that you could buy somebody. You know you get those toys that have got like 30 buttons on it and each one makes a different noise. You know what I mean. But it's like that. It's like it's like all the car alarms in the street all going off in sequence at once. But why is that song thrush? What's the value in it in showing off that diversity of song? Do you think? What is it? What is it getting out of?

Vicky Turnbull:

that. Well, ultimately he's trying to attract a mate. It's yeah, it's a bit like you know the starling and there's the other birds that we were talking about mimicking you know it's. It's kind of showing how fantastic it is and saying I'm the one you can wear everybody else, this is what I can do. A bit like darren, really. He's like that are you?

Darran Dixon:

off. No, I don't know what she's on about.

Stephen Magee:

But it is, isn't it? It's like it's, it's it's not so much about. Well, I don't know, we don't know, do we? This is one of the fascinating things about birdsong to us. It has an aesthetic value, right. It sounds amazing, it sounds beautiful, obviously, to the bird. It has a functional value, right, you know that. So that that song thrush, by having a whole bunch of different songs, is showing off its general fitness, right, it's, you know, breeding time. But who's to say there isn't like an aesthetic element as well? You know that a female song thrush isn't just listening for, like, isn't counting how many different songs you can do, might also be thinking, oh it's, that one's a really beautiful one too. I mean, you don't?

Darran Dixon:

know, do you? You just you don't know exactly, you don't, and maybe you know they all like different things. Maybe you know the females have different sort of choice, like I don't know, you know, some people like punk, some people like pop. Is there song thrushes that have like sort of song thrush females that have that sort of? They like different things in different males. I don't know. Yeah it's just difficult to know what, what goes on inside their brains.

Vicky Turnbull:

Maybe also they just like singing. You know it's like well, you know this will get me a nice mate, but also I just having a great time Just hanging out at the top of the tree belting out some tunes.

Stephen Magee:

If I could do that, I would do that every day, all day, seriously. I would. I mean like if you could go at the top of a tree and make a noise like that. You know, alright, you've got to set aside some of the day to like, eat worms or snails or whatever so you don't die, right, but then all my other time would be spent at the top of a tree just spitting that stuff right.

Darran Dixon:

It's insane exactly.

Stephen Magee:

If you've got it, flaunt it right totally so I really do mean that if I could make a noise like a song thrush, that is what I would spend my time doing but you know, you can only dream.

Stephen Magee:

Anyway, thank you very much to Vicky and Darran for showing me around and pointing out things that otherwise I would have completely missed. One listener to the podcast who may or may not be somebody who also lives in my house made a suggestion after hearing episode one, and that was that it might be worth recapping just for those of you who are trying to work on your bird ID. I think that's a good idea. I'm always at home with good ideas. So the birds I heard at Loch Leven were, in no particular order, a blue tit, the squeaky bike pump that is a coal tit, a really beautiful black cap and all the full-on morning energy of a song thrush.

Stephen Magee:

So, as discussed, I'm always holding good ideas about the podcast, about things we can talk about, about how we can improve it. If you have any thoughts, please do get in touch. Podcastscotlandrspborguk. That email address will be in the description. That is pretty much it for episode 2. Next week we will be heading to the pine woods of Abernethy, which I'm pretty excited about. Until then, do if you can get out and have a listen, because this is an absolutely brilliant time of year to do it. Thank you for listening and I will speak to you again next week.