A certain generation will remember singing in school assembly the hymn ‘Morning has broken’ with the lyrics ‘blackbird has spoken like the first bird…’.
But why do birds sing in the morning?
Songbirds account for nearly half the world’s 9,600 bird species and while their patterns of singing vary, it generally takes place in the morning starting at around 4am.
Biologists think this may be because they are settled in their territory and are letting others know their whereabouts. Some ornithologists think that birds like to sing in the morning because the sound carries further because there is less noise around and the air is denser at that time.
The dawn chorus tends to dip during the mating season because the birds are too busy.
The first birds to start their singing are usually blackbirds, robins and wrens and it is the males that sing from the tree branches while skylarks sing from the air. Metro
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