These past few weeks have been extremely mild here at Sycamore Hill. There is no doubting that there is a real feeling of spring in the air. A Birch tree in the garden has already started to show its first leaf or two, and the first spring flowers are pushing up through the soil. In truth, it feels more like March than late January.

Having lived in an urban setting all of my life, there are so many joys I am rediscovering as I begin life in the country. Again, don’t get me wrong…as a birder, I have actually ventured beyond The Pale. In fact, since I was old enough to get a bus by myself, I have been getting out of Dublin in search of birds. In fact, I have spent most of my spare time away from the city but actually living outside of Dublin really is something new.

So what has impressed me so far? The silence for one! Unless the wind is blowing strongly from the west, allowing the faint hum of traffic on the M11 to drift our direction, the silence is incredible. Last night was such a beautiful starry night and, as if this wasn't atmospheric enough, the silence of the night was broken by the calls of a dog fox.  He is close by and we have heard him several times over the past week or two. This beats the roars of the 39A bus that was my accompanying sound where I lived in Dublin. My last abode was close to the Phoenix Park and, while I did hear the odd fox or two calling last winter, it was the sound of traffic and Dublin Zoo’s chimps that I heard most often. Having said that, I do remember one night last winter. It was snowing heavily and there seemed to be a hush to the street. I remember standing in my small garden watching the snow fall and hearing the zoo’s wolf pack howling. It was a magical sound. I don’t think the local farmers would be too happy if a local wolf pack was to be heard here in Wicklow!
 

And the darkness impresses me greatly. It is only when you live in the country that you really appreciate the level of light pollution in an average city. On clear nights, there are so many stars to see. Jupiter is so obvious each night and I can’t resist looking at it through the scope to see its moons.
 

But it’s the sunrises that have really impressed me so far. Last week I stood outside to take it in. The light was superb but what really amazed me was the bird song that greeted this lovely morning. It was a January dawn chorus the like I’ve never heard before. It was a dawn chorus to rival any you might hear in May (except for the migrants). This was not the usual half-hearted sub-song that birds can sometimes sing in winter. No, all the birds were in full song. Blue, Great and Coal Tits, Greenfinches, Chaffinches, Goldfinches, House Sparrows, Blackbird, Mistle and Song Thrush along with Robin, Dunnock and Wren were all belting it out as best as they could.
 

Of course, January is the usual time that some males begin to prospect for suitable nest sites (now is the time to put up those nest boxes). So it shouldn’t be too surprising to hear bird song in January. Often the songs heard in winter are mere rehearsals for the breeding season that is still months away. But I do think that such early intense singing the like of which I have heard in the past week here is not quite the norm. ‘Will this mild weather entice birds to possibly breed early’? I wondered to myself.
 

Then, today (Jan 23^rd), I might have been given my answer.  I took a call from the ‘The Mooney Show’ in relation to a pair of Blackbirds in Galway. It seems that they have already built a nest, laid and incubated eggs, and are now busy raising two chicks. This really is so early for Blackbirds to be raising young. But the good thing is that they are not as reliant on timing the hatching of eggs and the raising of chicks to coincide with the abundance of food that other species, such as Blue Tits, might be. If they can find enough earthworms to feed their chicks, then they will successfully raise them. And with the air and soil temperatures being so high, the chances are they will be able to find enough food. 
 

However, February can often arrive with a bang and be one of the coldest months of the winter. I really do hope that, for these Blackbirds, the first buds on the trees and the first emerging flowers, that next month is as mild as this one.
 

Regardless, I will enjoy the Sycamore Hill winter dawn chorus while it lasts.