dawn chorus

Noun

dawn chorus (plural dawn choruses)

1. Birdsong by a large number of birds occurring in the early morning.
   • But the music of the spring-tide is past; the cuckoo is no longer vocal; the dawn-chorus is silent; summer has stilled the voices that but lately trilled so tirelessly, and, until another spring arrives, hedgerow and spinney will not again resound with the singing of the birds.1898 August 27, S. W. F., “July in South Devon”, in The Garden: An Illustrated Weekly Journal of Horticulture in All Its Branches, volume LIV, number 1397, London, →OCLC, page 160, column 2
   • [I]t was a poor woodcock year in the South of England; that young starlings were nearly fledged on the 25h January 1913; that the dawn choruses in March and up to the 10th April were very short, five to ten minutes only; the killing East and South wind and bitter cold effectually preventing, and...1914, W. Parkinson Curtis, “Phenological Report on First Appearances of Birds, Insects, &c., andf First Flowering of Plants in Dorset during 1913”, in Henry Symonds, editor, Proceedings of the Dorset...

   Synonyms:

   dawn choir

2. Radio interference sometimes experienced at sunrise.
   • [T]he dawn chorus usually has a characteristic chirpy sound, but at times changes into a hiss not unlike tube noise. […] Several investigators, including the author, have at times noticed a tendency for the dawn chorus to change intensity for a short period immediately following some lightning...1956 September 14, Harold E. Dinger, “The Dawn Chorus”, in Whistling Atmospherics (NRL Report; 4825), Washington, D.C.: Naval Research Laboratory, →OCLC, page 14
   • It is known that chorus, or ‘dawn chorus’, exhibits a pronounced diurnal variation in its occurrence and that different stations show different local times for the diurnal maxima. These maxima have been shown to be a function of geomagnetic latitude […]1960 January 9, Joseph H. Pope, “Effect of Latitude on Diurnal Maximum of ‘Dawn Chorus’”, in Nature: A Weekly Journal of Science, volume 185, number 4706, London: Macmillan and Co.; New York, N.Y....

   Synonyms:

   chorus