The Dawn Chorus

Come and learn about the functions and evolution of the dawn chorus, and how human activity is changing it.

Listening back, i think it's important to note that this research applies to diurnal (awake in the daytime) birds. Nocturnal birds never came up in my research, probably for that very reason, but I thought i'd mention it here nonetheless!

Also, I'm not sure why the last birdsong transition sounds a bit funky - it occurred during the final mastering step, and the rest were fine, so I don't know! Oh well, there's beauty in imperfection! 

This episode is dedicated to my Aunty Christine.

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References:

De Framond, L., & Brumm, H. (2022). Long-term effects of noise pollution on the avian dawn chorus: a natural experiment facilitated by the closure of an international airport. Proceedings of the Royal Society B, 289(1982), 20220906.

Gil, D., & Llusia, D. (2020). The bird dawn chorus revisited. Coding strategies in vertebrate acoustic communication, 45-90.

Gupta, P., Sinha, A., Malik, S., & Rani, S. (2023). Dawn and dusk chorus as a potential zeitgeber. Biological Rhythm Research, 54(1), 41-51.

Hill, S. D., Pawley, M. D., Anderson, M. G., & Ji, W. (2018). Higher song complexity and intruder pressure at dawn in a vocally complex songbird. Emu-Austral Ornithology, 118(2), 147-157.

Hodgson, L., Waas, J. R., & Foote, J. R. (2018). Early singers attend to conspecific but not heterospecific behavioural cues at dawn. Journal of Avian Biology, 49(7), e01749.

Hutchinson, J. M. (2002). Two explanations of the dawn chorus compared: how monotonically changing light levels favour a short break from singing. Animal Behaviour, 64(4), 527-539.

Lee, J. G. H., MacGregor‐Fors, I., & Yeh, P. J. (2017). Sunrise in the city: disentangling drivers of the avian dawn chorus onset in urban greenspaces. Journal of Avian Biology, 48(7), 955-964.

Naguib, M., Diehl, J., van Oers, K., & Snijders, L. (2019). Repeatability of signalling traits in the avian dawn chorus. Frontiers in zoology, 16, 1-11.

Pérez-Granados, C., Osiejuk, T. S., & López-Iborra, G. M. (2018). Dawn chorus interpretation differs when using songs or calls: the Dupont’s Lark Chersophilus duponti case. PeerJ, 6, e5241.

Schlicht, L., Schlicht, E., Santema, P., & Kempenaers, B. (2023). A dawn and dusk chorus will emerge if males sing in the absence of their mate. Proceedings of the Royal Society B, 290(2011), 20232266.

Vazquez-Cardona, J. (2022). Is the dawn chorus an adaptation to warm-up the voice in Adelaide's warbler (Setophaga adelaidae)? (Master's thesis, University of Lethbridge (Canada)).