Birdsong

Sir John Conant recounts the beginning of his farming career in Rutland in 1949, including the importance of his wife Periwinkle. 
 
Interview with John Conant in 2019, An oral history of farming, land management and conservation in post-war Britain 
 
C1828/10, Track 1 [00:28:21-01:10:24] 
 
Copyright: The British Library Board 

https://www.bl.uk/projects/national-life-stories-oral-history-of-farming

Sir John Conant Recounts The Beginning Of His Farming Career In Rutland

Blackbird roosting calls

Description
This is a recording of the song of the male blackbird. The blackbird surely ranks as one of our most familiar birds and also one of our most vocal, with a beautiful song that can be heard throughout most of the year in our woodlands, parks and gardens. In remote areas, where blackbirds rarely encounter humans they can be shy and retiring, but they are often much more bold and confiding in urban areas. Early morning and evening are usually the best times to hear the male blackbirds at their most lyrical, as they proclaim mates and territories from favoured song posts. Each song is often two to three seconds long with a similar interval before the next burst, and is rich and mellow with a languid delivery and fluted quality. Most birds have a wide repertoire of songs and birds can even develop a 'regional accent' as certain characteristic phrases spread through adjacent territories. Most of our breeding blackbirds are resident with around 4.5 million pairs breeding in Britain. Large winter influxes of migratory blackbirds from the continent can swell the population to between fourteen and twenty million birds. There was concern that numbers had been declining since the 1970's but recent surveys suggest the populations may well have stabilised.

Find out more about this recording on the British Library Sounds website: http://sounds.bl.uk/Environment/British-wildlife-recordings/022M-W1CDR0001521-1000V0

Duration
00:00:40

Shelf mark
W1CDR0001521 BD10

Subjects
Birds

Recording date
1970s

Recording locations
OS Grid Reference(484500,140500)

Recordist
Williams, Aubrey John

Species
Blackbird, Turdus merula


Blackbird song, United Kingdom, 1970s

This is a recording of the call of the robin. The robin is without doubt the most well-loved and best-known British bird. It is also one of the most widespread birds, being found in most gardens during the winter although somewhat scarcer during the breeding season. In Britain, it is very confiding and will often associate with gardeners digging the soil in order to take advantage of worms, or beetle larvae that become unearthed. Both male and female have identical plumage and can only be identified by their behaviour. The male is an extremely pugnacious and territorial little bird. It rarely moves more than 5 km from its birth site and will try to maintain a territory throughout the year, defending it very aggressively from interlopers. This explains why the male robin sings almost throughout the year. Its song however, varies much in composition during the course of the year and is at its strongest and most powerful from around Christmas when breeding territories become established. Disturbed robins also produce an urgent 'tic' as an alarm call. In good years, robins may produce three broods and this fecundity helps counter the severe winters which can cause very high mortality. There are 4,500,000 territories in Britain and the population is thought to be relatively stable.

Shelf mark
W1CDR0001389 BD4

Subjects
Birds

Recording date
1960s

Recording locations
OS Grid Reference(303500,86500)

Recordist
Shove, Lawrence

Species
Robin, Erithacus rubecula

Image reference https://pixabay.com/photos/robin-bird-nature-animal-world-3287974/

Robin calls (example 1), United Kingdom, 1960s

This is the call of the chaffinch recorded in a cemetery. The chaffinch is one of the most widespread and abundant birds in Britain choosing to breed wherever trees and bushes are present. The males are very dapper in their breeding plumage, with a slate-blue crown and neck, chestnut back, and pinkish underparts. The handsome males pair up with the much plainer females in late winter and one of the first signs of early spring, before the leaves are even on the trees, is the song of the male chaffinch. Their song is a short and dry descending trill that ends with a flourish. Once learnt, the 'pink' call of the chaffinch is very distinctive and betrays how ubiquitous this species really is. Even though continental chaffinches are highly migratory, British birds rarely move more than 5 km from their place of hatching. They have a very varied diet, eating seeds from a number of plants, such as goosefoot, chickweed, and a variety of grasses in the winter, converting to a high protein diet of caterpillars and other insects to feed their ever hungry chicks in the summer. Chaffinches can be single- or double-brooded depending on the weather and location and there are 5.4 million territories in Britain, with numbers slowly increasing.

Shelf mark
W1CDR0001389 BD5

Subjects
Birds

Recording date
1960s

Recording locations
OS Grid Reference(303500,86500)

Recordist
Shove, Lawrence

Species
Chaffinch, Fringilla coelebs

Image reference https://pixabay.com/photos/chaffinch-bird-wildlife-animal-1332886/

Chaffinch calls (example 2), United Kingdom, 1960s

The song of a male wren recorded in woodland. The diminutive wren has a remarkably loud voice considering its size; its vocalizations consist of a loud rattling call and warbling song. This bird is brown and rather rounded in appearance with a short narrow tail which is often held in a cocked position. This species is relatively common in Britain and seen in a variety of habitats including woodland, farmland, moorland, gardens and parks. 

Shelf mark
W1CDR0001401 BD3

Subjects
Birds

Recording date
1960s

Recording locations
OS Grid Reference(73500,868500)

Recordist
Shove, Lawrence

Species
Wren, Troglodytes troglodytes

Image reference www.flickr.com/photos/postmanpetecoluk/50766335221 (Pete Beard)

Wren song (example 2), United Kingdom, 1960s

Originally written and recorded as 'Barrett's Privateers' by Stan Rogers

With permission from Fogarty's Cove Records (http://stanrogers.net/)

Performed live and adapted by British Library Writer-in-Residence Rob Sherman and Nick Henderson (http://twitter.com/NickJHenderson) at the British Library, 8th December 2015 

“In the mid-nineteenth century, arguably the brief 'Golden Age' of vernacular organology aboard British ships, Arkwright's Privateers was one of the most popular 'chanteys', or accompanied work-songs, amongst the general maritime population. Though it did encroach upon naval vessels, it was amongst merchant crews and private ventures that it displayed the greatest tenacity; these vessels were often crewed by Midlands men, whose bravery and Romantic fate this song handles. It is also a prime example of the esteem in which sailors from the county of Derbyshire were held, an almost-mythopoeic pedestal from which they have never descended, not even in the present day.

The tune was likely sung on deck to the simple beat of a drum, most often as a 'hand-over-hand chantey', used in the task of setting the jib and other repetitive hauling tasks. The key evidence of this designation is the call-and-response component of each verse's first line, followed by a repeated refrain which keeps a tight rhythm, allowing for methodic application to the task at hand.

Despite its regional appeal, and its reliance on knowledge of mid-English folklore regarding the 'Derbyshire Sailors' and their adventures, versions of it have been recorded by folklorists up and down both littorals of the Atlantic, even as far south as the Antilles.”

Dr. Mark Tollas, from his introduction to 'Hilo, Boys, Hilo: A New History Of The English Ululation'

Learn more about Rob's British Library residency, 'On My Wife's Back' at http://onmywifesback.tumblr.com/ 

Arkwright's Privateers

Where are the current trends in radio and online audio leading? What might radio sound (and look) like on its 2022 centenary? Some leading figures of UK radio come together for a discussion on radio today and tomorrow: Ruth Barnes chairs a panel featuring Matt Deegan (Folder Media/Next Radio conference), Helen Boaden (Director of BBC Radio), Femi Adeyemi (NTS Radio) and journalist/broadcaster Miranda Sawyer. Produced by Rosina Sound & Allanah Chance for the British Library, 16 September 2016.

The Future of Radio

The Copeland-Long restoration of the earliest known recording of computer music, recorded at Alan Turing's Computing Machine Laboratory in Manchester in 1951. Read Copeland and Long's fascinating blog account of the all-night programming session which led to its creation, and Turing's reaction on hearing it the following morning:  http://blogs.bl.uk/sound-and-vision/2016/09/restoring-the-first-recording-of-computer-music.html

First known recording of computer music, 1951

A short stereo excerpt of a longer 8 channel work. This is a sonic investigation into community and gentrification in the London neighbourhood of Walworth. It has traditionally been a working-class neighbourhood with more recent residents coming from all over the world. The area has been subject to several contentious ‘regeneration’ schemes that have already caused the loss of 1100 socially rented homes of the Heygate Estate.

Elephant Endangered Stereo 1

Cataloging

One of the last Black Country chainmakers, Lucy Woodall, sings the worksong ‘Chainmaker lad is a masher’ and talks about singing. 

Recorded by Roy Palmer in Old Hill, Dudley, West Midlands, England. There was much iron and coal production in this area of England since the 1600s and chainmaking, centered around towns south of Dudley, was a flourishing business, now defunct. Songs like these are documents of our history and heritage. 

The full-length recording from the Traditional music in England collection is on British Library sounds: 
http://sounds.bl.uk/World-and-traditional-music/Traditional-music-in-England/025M-C1023X0040XX-0100V0#

Chainmaker lad is a masher

Robin in song, winter. 

Also audible in this recording: Song Thrush, Dunnock, Coot, Moorhen, Long-tailed Tit and Carrion Crow. 

Recorded at Fonthill Lake, Wiltshire on 18th February 1999 by Richard Savage, and shared as part of the British Library sound collection: https://soundcloud.com/the-british-library/robin-song-wiltshire-1999 

This recording is reproduced under Creative Commons licence CC-BY-3.0.

Profile Image by TeeFarm from Pixabay

Robin song

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Chaffinch calls (example 2), United Kingdom, 1960s

The British Library

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