7 Comments

The call of the curlew is certainly the most evocative of all birdsounds.

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I agree - although for me the sound of pink-footed geese, dawn and dusk, comes close. As does the call of cranes, whether common cranes on this side of the Atlantic, or sandhills on the other.

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Oh yes, pink footed geese, definitely another. Snipe drumming at dusk would be another as well.

I've sadly, never heard cranes in real life.

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It's a haunting sound. I've been lucky to have seen them multiple times at Lakenheath RSPB.

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Heartily agree. I heard Common Crane for the first time this year in Sweden. Their call was incredibly loud as it reverberated around the farmed river valley.

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Aldo Leopold described the sound of the sandhill crane as 'trumpeting' and it's a good description.

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Love your line Marian, "the concert hall of the edgeland." Hearing a curlew's call arising from the early morning marsh is one of the best British bird encounters one could have.

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