The call of the blue tit recorded at Loch Awl, Scotland. The blue tit is the most familiar member of the tit family and one our best loved British birds. It is a very common visitor to gardens and bird tables particularly during the winter as it supplements its insectivorous diet with peanuts, sunflower seeds and other household scraps at a time when food can be difficult to find. The blue tit's song is a high-pitched tremolo ending in a trill and the males can sing at any time of year but are most commonly heard from late winter through to high summer. Despite its diminutive appearance the blue tit can be quite an aggressive bird and both sexes often produce a scolding alarm call to defend a food source from interlopers, protect chicks, or even betray the presence of a local cat. Breeding blue tits confine themselves to one brood a year and the hatching date of the chicks is designed to synchronise with the first flush of caterpillars in the trees. So voracious is the appetite of a large brood of blue tits that the family is capable of eating over 10,000 caterpillars before they finally leave the nest. There are currently 3.3 million pairs in Britain, although this is boosted by a large numbers of continental blue tits that often spend the winter at British bird tables.

Shelf mark
W1CDR0001525 BD25

Subjects
Birds

Recording date
1976/10/25

Recording locations
Loch Awl, Scotland: OS Grid Reference(207710,722525)

Recordist
Williams, Aubrey John

Species
Blue Tit, Parus caeruleus

Image reference https://pixabay.com/photos/blue-tit-cyanistes-caeruleus-bird-1325368/

British Wildlife Recordings

Blue Tit calls, Loch Awl, Scotland, October 1976

Pleasure to upload the first Part of the fifth Radioshow KOMI on @radio80000 from me(:
I hope, you will enjoy the spirit, see you 15.November at 6-8 pm on air in KOMI dimension.
Thank you for listening&support !! <3

Artwork by me /

KOMI w/ ANNA Z #5

24-01

Imagine hearing the voice of a long-lost relative for the first time. Mary Stewart and Cynthia Brown discuss how oral history recordings can add rich context to family research.

https://www.bl.uk/events/family-history-and-archived-oral-histories

Feed the Mind: Family History and Archived Oral Histories

Evolving English: Linguistics at the Library Podcast

Episode 8

Have you ever wondered how linguistic researchers find people to interview? In this final episode, Andrew and Rowan discuss the methods they use to carry out their research on the Isle of Man and Cardiff, and how these are different to those used for the Evolving English collection. We also talk about the Survey of English Dialects, and how to categorise speakers when they have a mixture of accent influences.

Tweet us: @VoicesofEnglish

This week’s ‘What’s the feature?’ used a clip from:

BBC Voices Recording in Bangor. BBC, UK, rec. 2005[digital audio file]. British Library, C1190/41/13. Available: https://sounds.bl.uk/Accents-and-dialects/BBC-Voices/021M-C1190X0041XX-1301V0

References:

Labov, W. 1972. Sociolinguistic Patterns. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

Penhallurick, R. 1985. Fieldwork for the Survey of Anglo-Welsh Dialects: North Wales 1980-81. In W. Viereck (ed.) Focus on: England and Wales. 223-234.

British Library Spoken English collections: https://www.bl.uk/collection-guides/english-accents-and-dialects

24-01

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