Why Late Spring Rewards an Early Start

There is a particular hour in late May when the hedgerows seem to hold their breath. The sky is still soft grey-blue, the grass is wet with dew, and then a single blackbird begins — low, unhurried, fluting — and the whole morning opens up. The dawn chorus is at its fullest between late April and early June, and late spring is arguably the best of it: enough light to walk safely, mild enough to sit still for an hour, and a full cast of residents and newly arrived summer visitors singing at once.

The trick is to be in position before anyone starts. Birds do not wait for you to get comfortable. Arriving after the first song is like walking into a concert halfway through the second movement.

Choosing a Spot and Getting There in the Dark

You do not need a nature reserve. The best listening spots tend to be edges — where woodland meets a field, a thick hedgerow along a footpath, a churchyard with mature trees, or a gate looking out over pasture. What matters is variety: tall trees for blackbirds and song thrushes, dense low scrub for wrens and dunnocks, and some open sky so the sound is not muffled.

Avoid running water, busy roads, an exposed ridge in wind, or a noisy campsite. A shallow hollow, a field corner with a hedge behind you, or a bench under a yew tree will do beautifully. Sit with your back against something solid so you are not fidgeting to stay upright.

Check the sunrise time the night before and aim to arrive sixty to seventy-five minutes before it. In Britain in late May that can mean a start around half three. It sounds extreme. It is also the single change that transforms the experience.

Who Sings First: Reading the Order

The sequence is not random, though it shifts with weather, light and location. On a still, dry morning in late May, the usual pattern runs something like this:

• Robin — often the very first, a thin, silvery, trickling warble out of the dark. Robins sing by streetlight and moonlight, so in a village you may hear one before you have left the house.
• Blackbird — the next reliably early voice, rich and fluty, with phrases that slow at the end. It sounds relaxed in a way most birdsong does not.
• Song thrush — a ringing voice that repeats each phrase two or three times before moving on. The repetition is the giveaway.
• Wren — astonishingly loud for a bird the size of a walnut. A fast, buzzy rattle with a hard, dry trill, often delivered from deep cover.
• Great tit, dunnock, chiffchaff, blackcap — as the light strengthens, the two-note "teacher-teacher" arrives, then the metronomic chiff-chaff, then the hurried fluty warble of blackcap.
• Woodpigeon, pheasant, jackdaw — later risers, more punctuation than melody.

Weather matters. A wet or windy morning brings a thinner, later chorus; after a clear, calm night it can be spectacular.

A Simple Dawn Log to Keep

Take a notebook and a pencil — pencil writes in damp air where ink smears. Four lines are enough:

• Date, place, arrival time and sunrise time.
• Weather: cloud, wind direction and strength, temperature if you have a thermometer.
• First three species heard, with times. The first entry is the gold.
• Anything unusual — a cuckoo, or a silence in a hedgerow that should be busy.

After a few seasons you will have something genuinely useful: a record of how your corner of the countryside wakes up, and how that shifts with the year.

Keeping Still, Keeping Warm

Sitting motionless at four in the morning in May is colder than it sounds. Wear wool rather than rustling waterproofs; every swish of a synthetic jacket sends birds deeper into cover. A hat, gloves and a thermos make the difference between a pleasant hour and a shivering twenty minutes. A sit mat saves your back from damp ground, and a midge hood is not an affectation in a Welsh or Scottish woodland in late spring.

Use a head torch on its red setting to find your way, then switch it off. Keep the phone silent in your pocket. And please resist playing recordings of birdsong to draw birds in — it stresses the very residents you have come to hear.

Bringing the Morning Home

The pleasure does not end at sunrise. Listening sits happily alongside the old cottage crafts: a hand-stitched notebook, bound with linen thread and covered in a scrap of worn fabric, is a lovely place to keep a dawn log, and making it is a quiet evening's work in itself. Press a fallen blossom between the pages, or keep a whittled hazel stick by the door ready for the next early start.

Then comes the best part: a slow pot of tea, a slice of bread and butter, and the memory of the exact moment the blackbird began. Not a bad way to spend a morning.