Abstract
THE preliminary report on the first year's record of the bird song survey in the British Isles, carried out under the auspices of the British Trust for Ornithology during August 1937–August 1938, states that some eighty observers took part and there are records of the song period of the mistle-thrush from 52 localities, the song thrush from 76, blackbird from 74, chaffinch 63, yellowhammer 35 and skylark 48. Sussex and Cheshire were well covered, but there were only two sets of records from Ireland, three from Scotland and one from Wales, and none from Cornwall, Dorset, Lincolnshire, East Yorkshire, Durham, Northumberland, Stafford, Shropshire or Hereford. 10–15 per cent of the records were very incomplete, being made over less than nine months, and scarcely a quarter of the observers lived in the country and could listen to bird song throughout the day. One observer suggests that by no means all the male birds of even these common species sing at all, so that future observations are to give close attention to this point. The cold spring no doubt reduced bird song considerably in some localities. Several of the best-filled forms came in from clergymen, but fortunately a greater list of observers has been obtained for the repeat of the survey now under progress, especially from Ireland. Most parts of England are fairly well represented. A good many observations, however, have been kept by people whose weekday hours of observation are very limited, especially during the short winter days.
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British Bird Song Survey. Nature 142, 1151–1152 (1938). https://doi.org/10.1038/1421151c0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/1421151c0