Dawn Chorus: created in a moment of silence

During this brief moment of silence, project Dawn Chorus was brought to life by the Naturkundemuseum Bayern with BIOTOPIA LAB and the Foundation Arts and Nature (Nantesbuch), with support from the Max Planck Society. During an extremely short timeframe, a number of people came together to launch the project, inspired by the works of „father of soundscaping“, bioacoustician and musician, Bernie Krause (The Doors“, Frank Zappa, „The Weavers“). Since then, Dawn Chorus invites people from all across the globe to experience and to record the morning concert, to help make nature’s voice be heard. From 2022 with a new strong project partner, Landesbund für Vogelschutz in Bayern (LBV).

 „A healthy landscape

is best seen with the ears.“

Bernie Krause, Soundscaping Pioneer, during Masterclass with BIOTOPIA and Foundation Arts and Nature (2019)

 

Currently, we and our planet find ourselves in the midst of a massive biodiversity crisis, referred to Earth’s 6th mass extinction event. The numbers of land vertebrates dropped by 60% since 1970. Birds in particular are strongly affected, and their numbers are plummeting at an alarming rate, especially in Germany and other European countries.

In the morning concert, as beautiful as it may sound, we can clearly hear these declines – if we just listen.

Birds as singing ambassadors to biodiversity

Many bird species are so-called indicator species as they provide information about different properties of a habitat. Long-term collections of early-morning bird sound recordings can thus help us to detect changes in habitats, for example by telling us where species disappear or appear, or how birds change their behaviour.
The scientific goal of Dawn Chorus is to document bird diversity over time using sound recordings through the help of citizen scientists. This “acoustic biomonitoring” data helps to discover changes in biodiversity. For scientific comparability, the free Dawn Chorus App for Android and iOS was developed in 2021. The main scientific data collection period always takes place in May.

Not just another Citizen Science project

The scientific goal of Dawn Chorus is to monitor bird diversity over the years using sound recordings and the help of citizen scientists. The data from this “acoustic biomonitoring” helps to show changes in species composition.

The main collecting period always takes place in May, when birds are breeding.

The Dawn Chorus App

The Dawn Chorus app was developed in 2021 to simplify the recording process, to increase and standardise the scientific quality of the audio recordings, while at the same time providing room for creativity and arts.

 Learn more about the app >

The Dawn Chorus app is available for free for Android and iOS:

The former Bavarian Minister of Science and Arts Bernd Sibler about the Citizen Science and Arts Project Dawn Chorus 2021:

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Video Trailer for the Kick-Off of Dawn Chorus in 2020:

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Dawn Chorus was co-initiated by

Dr. Bernie Krause
Soundscape ecologist & musician, California, USA

Prof. Kathrin Böhning-Gaese
Senckenberg Gesellschaft, Frankfurt (Main), Germany

Prof. Manfred Gahr
Department of Behavioural Neurobiology
Director of the Max Planck Institute for Biological Intelligence (in foundation), Seewiesen, Germany

Dr. Dan Stowell
Tilburg University & Naturalis Biodiversity Centre, Netherlands

Dr. Moritz Hertel
Department of Behavioural Neurobiology
Max Planck Institute for Biological Intelligence (in foundation), Seewiesen, Germany

Dr. Henrik Brumm
Research Group Animal Communication and Urban Ecology
Max Planck Institute for Biological Intelligence (in foundation), Seewiesen, Germany

Dr. Tereza Petruskova
Department of Ecology
Charles University, Prage, Czech Republic

Prof. Michael Scherer-Lorenzen
University of Freiburg, Freiburg, Germany