Forum for former BBC staff

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http://www.ex-bbc.net/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.pl >> News and Comment >> RADIO 4 and THE BIRDS! http://www.ex-bbc.net/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.pl?num=1494143533 Message started by Roundabout on May 7^th, 2017, 7:53am

Title: RADIO 4 and THE BIRDS!
Post by Roundabout on May 7^th, 2017, 7:53am

I am writing this at about 5.30am after listening for the last hour and a half to part of Radio 4's through the night relay of dawn chorus from around the world. Yes we have all heard the dawn chorus but to lie in bed and just drink in the sounds of nature building to a great crescendo has been a wonder. As I have mentioned before I was proud to bring this sound to listeners live several years ago but even then the spendour of the birds waking the countryside up was distracted by the mechanics of broadcasting. The next time I was able to hear that uplifting sound was when I was up early in more recent years caring for my dying Wife. Now for the first time I have been able to lie in bed and just drink in exactly what nature does at the start of the day. Very early on could be heard lyrical blackbirds, complaining canada geese, and yes unhappy pidgeons. Just before the chorus wakened a Ladies chorus performed live and unaccompanied the musical notes in human voices imitating the hedge warbler for instance as if to help nature wake up....not the commercial sound that this might have threatened to be but the result of study of natural folk tunes and the generations of singers who have been inspired by what birds throughout the ages have done. The welcoming sounds to start the new day, coupled with the lovers' hatred of that dreaded sound that marked the time when thier reverie in each others arms had to be broken by the return to the workaday world. And of course for those who use the radio as a through the night companion because of sleeping difficulties this at long last replaced for just once in a lifetime the news, news, news of the destructive forces that dominate radio in their grumbling, shouting,screaming chirrupings of hatred and despondency. Yes thank you R4 for giving us at long long last a counterbalance to all that discord in our lives. My early morning beverage of tea has not for so long tasted so good, My spirit lifted and my soul settled into the waking and rising into the new Sunday.