South Uist: The first new voices were those of the lapwings, their swooping two-note calls perfectly echoing the daredevil aerobatics of their tumbling display flight
The roar of the sea after a gale and the calls of the geese on the machair made up the song of winter. But as the season changes, so does its music. The first new voices to be heard were those of the lapwings, their swooping two-note calls perfectly echoing the daredevil aerobatics of their tumbling display flight. Next came the skylarks, beginning with a lone singer climbing skyward on a cool and breezy morning and letting fall an uncertain stream of unpractised notes. Within days it was joined by others, their songs gradually becoming stronger and more sustained. Even today on this wet morning a solitary lark is singing, the cascade of notes a joyous contrast to the falling rain.
The garden, too, has its musical chorus. A song thrush sings daily from its favourite fencepost. Hesitant at first, it began the season with a few cautiously repeated phrases. After only a couple of weeks it has moved on to virtuoso performances comprising both mimicry and original themes and variations. The territorial scuffles of the blackbirds that visited the garden throughout the winter have been settled, and the victor has claimed the tallest of the wind-battered trees and the roof of the byre as his songposts. He sings a more melodious and mellow song than the thrush – a song more evocative of long, slow summer evenings than the bright rush of spring. But his singing has met with approval, for both he and a female are regularly disappearing on what seem to be reconnoitring missions into the shrubs.
But it is the least vocal of our garden birds that have quietly and unobtrusively got on furthest with the rituals of spring. Ignoring the nest box which we placed so as to be visible from the kitchen window, a pair of house sparrows are already carrying nesting material into the same part of the shrubbery the blackbirds have taken a fancy to.