An Hour of Bird Calls—20 September 2026

There was no bird list yesterday because I was away early for Dumfries Pride 2026.

This morning, I started Merlin while David was getting ready to leave for a drum clinic—and then forgot about it. Instead of my usual half-hour recording, it listened for a full hour.

Perhaps that explains the extraordinary list:

Robin, chaffinch, blue tit, house martin, great tit, wren, blackbird, bullfinch, carrion crow, swallow, jackdaw, meadow pipit, chiffchaff, blackcap, spotted flycatcher, white wagtail, dunnock, nuthatch, starling, raven, long-tailed tit, red-billed chough, coal tit, lesser whitethroat, buzzard, cuckoo and song thrush.

Twenty-seven species altogether—or, more accurately, twenty-seven identifications suggested by the app.

Some are familiar voices here. Others—particularly the red-billed chough and cuckoo—are surprising enough to require a large question mark. Intriguing possibilities, but certainly not confirmed sightings. Or even confirmed hearings, because even I, who can only remember the birdsong from about 4 birds, would recognise a cuckoo.

Still, accidental or otherwise, it was quite a morning’s listening.

Birds are identified mainly by sound using the Merlin Bird ID app. The list is a record of what the app detected rather than a confirmed survey, so occasional misidentifications are possible—particularly with unexpected or particularly exotic visitors.