Listen to Britain’s 1976 song: the dramatic loss of birdsong in 50 years | Birds

Ithink of the many sounds of birds that wake up your children in the morning; the chirping of sparrows, the chatter of stars, the music of birds, and the clear flute of blackbirds that fill the garden, roaring in your park, dominating your landscape from early morning to late evening.

The song of the thrush is so loud that the naturalist and ornithologist WH Hudson wrote in 1919 that he was grateful when he saw one standing in a tree far from his home, “so that when I awoke at half-past three or four o’clock, the untiring shrill voice reached a distant place and was cleared by a dew-filled window.

The poet Percy Shelley wrote of the great joy of the sky, while John Keats’s Ode to a Nightingale was inspired when he heard the bird’s full voice in his garden. In 1832, poet John Clare attempted to put the nightingale’s song into words for the first time.

“Chee chew chew” and you are high standing
“Cheer cheer cheer cheer” too loud and shout
“Be happy, be happy, be happy” and lower
Low “tweet tweet jug jug jug” and stop.

It was poet Mary Oliver who noted that pausing to look at nature closely is the first step to protecting and preserving it. “Attention is the beginning of devotion,” he wrote.

But despite the apparent dedication of the most popular literary voices of the past two centuries, the “chee chew chee chew” of the nightingale, the twittering of the house martin and the song of the thrush are no longer heard in gardens, yards and porches in many parts of Britain.

Over the past 50 years, Britain has lost an astonishing 73 million wild birds from its habitat, according to the British Trust for Ornithology (BTO).

“What we have is a changing base,” said Dr Rob Robinson, BTO’s senior bird scientist. “People who participate in nature today will think that the values ​​they see are normal, especially children. But if you go back 50 years, they would have been able to find a richer place.”

As the symphony of bird music known as the dawn chorus draws to a close at the end of June, the Guardian has recreated the soundscape from across the last 50 years to try to reveal the variety and abundance of bird music that we have lost since tens of millions of birds were fully heard. The calls and songs of various species have been separated to create a morning chorus image, representing a year in each decade, from now back to the boom of the 1970s.

In April 1976, as the dawn song was raging, Labour’s Harold Wilson resigned as prime minister and James Callaghan took his place. Today, although the political systems are remarkably similar what happens, the nature of the sound of the natural world changes completely to one of absence, exclusion and loss.

This “shifting syndrome” – a gradual change in the accepted norm when it comes to the natural environment – says the environmental writer Robert Macfarlane, “is very powerful and I think it is a very dangerous, psychological way in which each new generation measures the loss from the bad foundation that we grew up to be. We are part of the web. We are the lips that can remember every day.”

Ralph Pite, a professor of English at the University of Bristol who specializes in using literature to examine environmental diversity and climate change, was 14 years old in the spring and summer of 1976. “I grew up in Worcester and went to school. [there],” he said. All those kids were happy and excited about it. But today that light is really gone.”

Human intervention in the form of housing and commercial development has significantly reduced the number of wild bird habitats in Britain, which has become one of the world’s most depleted. Industrialization of agriculture, the proliferation of cereal crops, pesticides, pollution and climate change are all depleting our wild birds, and in some cases leading to the extinction of long-loved and well-known species.

The rattlesnake and the chirping house sparrow, which were so plentiful in 1976 that some considered them pests, have become a major loss in British gardens. The number of house sparrows has fallen by more than 72% since then, and the number of famous people by 88%, according to the BTO.

Both species are today on the UK Red List of Birds of Conservation Concern, along with the greenfinch, swift, house martin, tree sparrow, cuckoo and nightingale.

Robinson said the loss was much smaller than the title might suggest. “The dramatic losses occurred in the late 70s, 80s, and early 90s, and since then the decline has been at a moderate but consistent level,” he said.

“We’re seeing specialist species decline, in some cases badly, for example the spotted woodpecker, the red-backed shrike – which used to be common all over southern England – has now disappeared. At the same time, common species like the pigeon are doing much better. So what we’re seeing is a huge loss of abundance.”

Many species of birds are indicative of the state of wildlife. A variety of habitats are needed to support different bird species, so their loss is a sign of the decline of those rich and diverse habitats.

Susan Morgan, chief executive officer of SongBird Survival, said birdsong is also much more than a sign of a thriving environment. “We will not allow the places where we live, where we work, and our feet to remain silent,” he said. “Birdsong … is our daily connection with nature. The gentle dawn chorus tells us something is wrong, often before we know it. If we are lost we may never find it.”

New threats are emerging for birds that were not in serious danger of population decline until now. In the south-east of England and Greater London, the blackbird is threatened by the Usutu virus, which originated in Africa and was first seen in Britain in 2020. Its geographical spread is due to climate change.

Garden bird trichomonosis, caused by a parasite, infects greenfinches and is beginning to spread to chaffinches. Bird charities including the RSPB are urging well-meaning birders not to feed birds from May to October, when natural food is plentiful, in an effort to help reduce the spread of disease, as garden feeders can be super-spreaders.

Colin Butler, director of the civil engineering industry, said he had noticed a decline in species in his garden in Wallsend. “There are less stars and sparrows in the house than when I was young,” he said, adding that the sound of the morning choir humiliated him. “I associate the morning song with peace and the thought that anything can happen.”

Pite and others, however, maintain some hope and highlight the popularity of the Merlin app as a sign that people are paying attention to the environment and, through that connection, helping to record and preserve it. The app, created by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, is a free digital tool that identifies birds from the song it hears in real time.

Robinson said: “What it’s doing is getting people involved and bringing them closer to nature, but the environment they’re involved in is much poorer than it was 50 years ago.”

Joella Manley, 27, a naturalist from Nottingham, is one of a growing number of young people who have taken up birdwatching. “I love watching birds, especially the little garden birds going about their business. My favorite bird is usually the one I’m watching at the moment, usually a goldfinch or a long-tailed tit,” she said. Whenever you can see and appreciate birds, they make each day better.

“Birdsong is beautiful and unique,” said Macfarlane. The nightingale sounds like drops of molten metal thrown into water and then heard.

“They remind us of the greatness and mysteries and wonders of the world. And they do it all the time. But it’s not enough to love the song and forget the singers. There is so much hard work that is needed from the government, businesses and individuals to help the birds thrive.”

The Guardian recreated the morning song using data provided by the British Trust for Ornithology and audio recordings submitted to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and Xeno-canto by James Kennerly, Peter Kennerly, Mark Lewis, Jon Lowes and David Darrell-Lambert. Species were selected using the BTO Birds on Your Doorstep tool based on the location of the original recording, and were added to the sounding area in accordance with annual species abundance data. The calls and songs of each species were separated to create a morning chorus image that represented a year in each decade.