Learn about different bird noises
Before you begin
- Use the safety checklist to help you plan and risk assess your activity. There's also more guidance to help you carry out your risk assessment, including examples. Don’t forget to make sure all young people and adults involved in the activity know how to take part safely.
- Make sure you’ll have enough adult helpers. You may need some parents and carers to help if you’re short on helpers.
- Choose an appropriate, accessible outdoor area. You may need to think about avoiding steps, being close to public transport, or steep gradients or including frequent breaks.
- Make sure parents and carers know exactly where you’ll be, what people may need to bring, the day, the location, and when and where to drop off and collect everyone.
- Have a suitable, well-lit place for drop off and collection, away from any traffic.
- Check the weather forecast. Make sure everyone knows to come dressed for the weather and activity, being prepared for the weather to change.
- Check the sunset times, making sure that you’ll have sufficient light throughout the activity. It’s best to run this activity on lighter evenings, such as in summer.
- You may want to run this as a special weekend or early morning Scout session, such as on a Night Away event. Birds can be heard most often early in the morning from March to July, with the peak occurring in May and June. The first singers pipe up about an hour before sunrise, so you’ll need to be an early bird – especially if you want to catch the first few songs or identify individual birds.
Learn about different birdsongs
- Gather everyone in a circle and ask if anyone can name any birds. See if anyone knows the noises different birds make and what they sound like.
- Think about when you hear birds. Why do you think you hear more birds in the morning?
- Tell everyone that there’s less background noise and the air is so still, sound carries around 20 times further than it would later in the day, so we hear more birds. Birds start singing at different times, and just like an orchestra, there’s a set sequence. Robins blackbirds and thrushes are first. They’re then joined by woodpigeons, wrens and warblers. Great tits, blue tits, sparrows and finches only add their voices when it’s light enough for them to see.
- Explain that birds all make different sounds. If you’re quiet, you can sometimes pick out the different sounds they make. Sometimes it is easier to hear birds than to spot them. Show each of the following bird sounds to the group. For younger groups, see if you can make the noise together, so people know what to listen out for.
- Blue tit: very high pitched, ‘tsee, tsee, tsee, chu, chu, chu’,
- Robin: song is soft and sad in autumn, the rest of the year it sounds like this ‘tweedle- oo, tweedle-eedee, tweedle-oo tweedle’, its warning call is ‘pip, pip, pip’
- Blackbird: is beautiful and tuneful like a flute, its warning call is short and high pitched ‘chook, chook, chook’
- Sparrow: ‘cheap, cheap, cheap, cheap’
- Chiffchaff: ‘chiff chaff, chiff chaff’
- Great tit: ‘teacher, teacher’
- Coal tit: ‘titchew, titchew’, it sounds like it’s sneezing
- Collar dove: ‘I doooon’t know, I doooon’t know’
- Woodpigeon: ‘my TOE hurts mummy, my TOE hurts mummy’
Go bird spotting and listen for birds
- When you’re ready, everyone should spread out around the space, find somewhere quiet to be still, and listen to the birds. How many different birds can you hear?
- Stay quiet and try to listen out for different bird calls. It’s best to concentrate on one bird at a time.
- Cup your hands behind your ears, because this makes it easier to hear. You can move your hands about to direct where you want to hear. If people want to they could close their eyes and listen too, as this helps to ‘tune-in’ to the sounds.
- If they want to, people should move around and try listening in different locations within the boundaries of the space.
- Ask everyone to imagine what the different birds look like based on their sound. Can they spot the bird making the sound or try pointing to where the sound is coming from? Pick your favourite sound and listen carefully.
- Gather everyone back together and ask why they think birds sing. Early mornings are too dark to search for food, and too dark to be spotted by predators, so it's perfect time to sing. It’s often called the dawn chorus. The dawn chorus is all about defending territory and raising chicks.
- Ask everyone what type of birds they think make the most noise, male or female birds? The singing you can hear in the morning is typically carried out by male birds. Making so much noise uses up a lot of energy, especially on an empty stomach and after a chilly night, so only the strongest, best-fed males will produce the loudest songs. They show the female birds that they’re fit, healthy and hold a territory with plenty of food. A loud song also serves as a deterrent for any rival males who may be looking to move in.
Reflection
This activity was all about listening to bird calls and knowing what to hear. You may have found it easier to close your eyes to listen for the birds.
Did you hear any birds? Could you identify the bird by the noise? Could you spot the bird to check if you were right? Did you see any birds? What is your favourite bird noise? How easy was it to pick out the different bird noises?
Birds are often all around us. What other clues, apart from hearing and seeing them, might there be to let us know birds are nearby? If you made your own bird noise, what would it be?
Safety
All activities must be safely managed. You must complete a thorough risk assessment and take appropriate steps to reduce risk. Use the safety checklist to help you plan and risk assess your activity. Always get approval for the activity, and have suitable supervision and an InTouch process.
- Animals and insects
Be aware of the risks before interacting with animals. Be aware of anyone with allergies, and make alternative arrangements for them.
- Outdoor activities
You must have permission to use the location. Always check the weather forecast, and inform parents and carers of any change in venue.
- Visits away from your meeting place
Complete a thorough risk assessment and include hazards, such as roads, woodland, plants, animals, and bodies of water (for example, rivers, ponds, lakes, and seas). You’ll probably need more adult helpers than usual. Your risk assessment should include how many adults you need. The young people to adult ratios are a minimum requirement. When you do your risk assessment, you might decide that you need more adults than the ratio specifies. Think about extra equipment that you may need to take with you, such as high visibility clothing, a first aid kit, water, and waterproofs. Throughout the activity, watch out for changes in the weather and do regular headcounts.
- Road safety
Manage groups carefully when near or on roads. Consider adult supervision and additional equipment (such as lights and high visibility clothing) in your risk assessment.
- To make this activity easier, people may want to learn about fewer birds, so you could choose three to try to listen to and identify.
- Make sure your route’s accessible for everyone. You may need to think about avoiding steps or steep gradients or including frequent breaks.
- If anyone has hearing loss, could they try to spot birds visually? Think about how they could be supported to take part in the activity.
All Scout activities should be inclusive and accessible.
If people enjoyed this activity, why not spend some more time learning about birds? You could go on a birdwatching walk at a nature reserve, build a birdhouse or make bird feeders.
For younger groups, you could play a quick game to test their knowledge of bird sounds. Choose four to six of the birds from the bird tunes activity and whisper the name of one bird to each person. Ask the group to think about (but not say) what sounds they learned that their bird makes. When everyone is ready, ask everyone to make their sound. Can they find the other people making their sound and gather in a space? Once everyone has found their flock, check if they’re all the same bird.