Synopsis
Discover birds through their songs and calls. Each Tweet of the Day begins with a call or song, followed by a story of fascinating ornithology inspired by the sound.
Episodes
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Spotted Crake
27/05/2013 Duration: 01minTweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about our British birds inspired by their calls and songs. David Attenborough presents the Spotted Crake. If it weren't for its whiplash song, the spotted crake could win a prize as our least visible bird. Unlike its showy relatives the coot and the moorhen, this polka-dotted skulker is notoriously hard to find and only rarely betrays itself by singing.
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Redshank
24/05/2013 Duration: 01minTweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about our British birds inspired by their calls and songs. David Attenborough presents the Redshank. Redshanks are one of our commonest wading birds at home in freshwater marshes and on estuaries where you can easily recognise them from their combination of long scarlet legs, white rumps and wing-bars and greyish brown bodies.
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Garganey
23/05/2013 Duration: 01minTweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about our British birds inspired by their calls and songs. David Attenborough presents the Garganey. When you hear the male's peculiar call, you could be forgiven for thinking that the Garganey is a grasshopper rather than a duck. One of its other names is 'cricket teal' and the dry rattle is unlike any other British bird sound you'll hear.
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Tawny Owl
22/05/2013 Duration: 01minTweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about our British birds inspired by their calls and songs. David Attenborough presents young Tawny Owls. Most of us know the "hoot" and "too-wit" of Tawny Owls but might be puzzled if we heard wheezing in the woods, the sound of the young.
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Greenfinch
21/05/2013 Duration: 01minTweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about our British birds inspired by their calls and songs. David Attenborough presents the Greenfinch. Often seen singing from the tops of garden trees looking large for a finch with a heavy bill, these are sadly a declining garden bird.
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Shag
20/05/2013 Duration: 01minTweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about our British birds inspired by their calls and songs. David Attenborough presents the Shag. Perhaps the least vocal of all British birds they hiss and belch to warn off interlopers getting too close to their nest. They are seabirds and their name comes from the shaggy crest on the top of their head.
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Dartford Warbler
17/05/2013 Duration: 01minTweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about our British birds inspired by their calls and songs. David Attenborough presents the Dartford Warbler. Dartford Warblers prefer Mediterranean wine-producing climates, which means ice and snow is bad news for them. The harsh winters of 1961 and 1962 reduced the population to just 11 pairs, but fortunately the numbers have since recovered.
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Grey Heron
16/05/2013 Duration: 01minTweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about our British birds inspired by their calls and songs. David Attenborough presents the Grey Heron. The Grey Heron makes a loud croaking sound, often standing in an ungainly way on a tree-top which it might share with many others for nesting - the heronry.
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Blackcap
15/05/2013 Duration: 01minTweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about our British birds inspired by their calls and songs. David Attenborough presents the Blackcap. Many Blackcaps winter in sub-Saharan Africa, but increasingly birds have been wintering in the Mediterranean and over the last few decades spent the winter in the UK.
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Garden Warbler
14/05/2013 Duration: 01minTweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about our British birds inspired by their calls and songs. David Attenborough presents the Garden Warbler. Garden warblers aren't very well named .these are birds which like overgrown thickets of shrubs and small trees and so you're more likely to find them in woodland clearings especially in newly- coppiced areas.
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Nightingale
13/05/2013 Duration: 01minTweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about our British birds inspired by their calls and songs. David Attenborough presents the extraordinary duet between cellist Beatrice Harrison and a nightingale recorded live as an outside broadcast and the first broadcast of any wild animal not in captivity.
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Nightingale Part 1
10/05/2013 Duration: 01minTweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about our British birds inspired by their calls and songs. David Attenborough presents the nightingale. (Part 1 of 2) A bird whose song of rich crescendos of pure whistles and breathless phrases is hailed as one of the most complex and beautiful in the bird world and quite different to its plain brown appearance.
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Wood Warbler
09/05/2013 Duration: 01minTweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about our British birds inspired by their calls and songs. David Attenborough presents the wood warbler. Their song has been described as "a spinning coin on a marble slab" and you're most likely to hear this chorister in oak or beech wood.
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Swift
08/05/2013 Duration: 01minTweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about our British birds inspired by their calls and songs. David Attenborough presents the Swift. Swifts live in the sky, feeding, mating and sleeping on the wing. Their feet are so reduced they cannot stand particularly well on land, only the near vertical surfaces on which they build their nest.
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Song Thrush
07/05/2013 Duration: 01minTweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about our British birds inspired by their calls and songs. David Attenborough presents the Song Thrush. The male's song in the dawn chorus includes a repertoire of over a hundred different phrases making it one of the richest songs of any British Bird.
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Cuckoo - Male
06/05/2013 Duration: 01minDavid Attenborough narrates the first in a new series of short stories about our British birds inspired by their calls and songs, beginning with the Cuckoo. After spending winter in Africa, the migratory urge propels the Cuckoos northwards. And for many of us their return is a welcome sign that spring is well and truly here.