International Dawn Chorus Day

It's the First of May. It's May Day. It's International Dawn Chorus Day. Around the world people are broadcasting the sounds of daybreak from overnight soundcamps. They are setting up their microphones, and streaming birdsong and more as the light comes. These events are linked through Reveil, a 24 hour series of live events, organised from Soundtent (http://www.soundtent.org/).

I'm ready to broadcast too. I'm streaming the sounds of daybreak from Tempe Ponds using the Mixlr app (above) on my smartphone. It's not so much a sound tent I've got, more of a sound anorak, as I hold my waterproof over my phone. Apart from the sound of the falling rain, it's so quiet around the ponds that you can easily hear the hum of early traffic on the Princes Highway. Not the sounds I'd intended to share with the rest of the world. Slowly I begin to hear the wok wok of Striped Marsh Frogs against the rumble of an approaching thunderstorm. Surely a bird or two will pipe up soon. You can always bet on the Noisy Miners to make a racket in the mornings. 

Well, you'd lose your bet. Distant traffic, frogs, raindrops, thunder, sirens. And now a petulant grumble, rising to a roar of fury. It's a plane taking off from the nearby international airport. At last, I can hear the occasional startled protest of a Dusky Moorhen. Now back to the cars and buses away over there somewhere. What I wouldn't give to hear (and stream) the carolling of even one lonely Australian Magpie. I'd settle for a Red Wattlebird clearing its throat. What do I get? Another aircraft taking off.

At least there are no barking dogs as yet. Wait! Was that a Superb Fairy-wren? Gone. There - a Eurasian Coot. Stopped. The light is coming quickly now. It's a grey day, but I watch the rain on the ponds anyway. An Australasian Grebe is standing on a piece of polystyrene in the middle of a pond, like a castaway on a floating island or a surfer on a stand-up paddleboard. I'm twenty minutes into the broadcast. Not a lot going on audio wise. 

It's now forty-five minutes since I began. I'm sure the whole wide world has heard enough by now to realise that there is not likely to be much of a dawn chorus from Tempe Ponds today. The sun is well and truly up, though there's little evidence of that through the heavy black clouds. Time to stop the broadcast. And wander home forlorn in the soaking rain. 

Of course. Here come the Rainbow Lorikeets, screaming their way through the canopy of the gum trees beyond the ponds. And one lone Pied Currawong arrives in time to mock me.