Tweet of the Day

By BBC Radio 4

Discover birds through their songs and calls. Each Tweet of the Day begins with a call or song, followed by a story of fascinating ornithology inspired by the sound.

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· Science

4.3

2222 ratings

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FAQs about Tweet of the Day:

How many episodes does Tweet of the Day have?

The podcast currently has 735 episodes available.

Tweet of the Day episodes:

May 07, 2014 Reed Bunting
Tweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about British birds inspired by their calls and songs.
David Attenborough presents the story of the reed bunting. The reed bunting makes up for its lack of musicality with striking good looks. Male birds have jet black heads and a white moustache and look stunning on a spring day as they sit on shrubs or sway on reed stems, flicking their tales nervously and chanting a simple refrain.
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2min
May 06, 2014 Urban Dawn Chorus
Tweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about British birds inspired by their calls and songs.
David Attenborough introduces the final recording marking International Dawn Chorus day. The urban dawn chorus was recorded by Chris Watson in Whitechapel, London as part of a project to enable the children of the Royal London Children's Hospital to hear the wildlife sounds on their doorstep. Birds featured include the robin, blackbird, great tit and house sparrow.
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2min
May 05, 2014 Wetland Dawn Chorus
Tweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about British birds inspired by their calls and songs.

David Attenborough presents the third of four recordings marking Dawn Chorus Day: a dawn chorus from the marshes of North Warren in Suffolk. On clear moonlit nights the chorus can be an almost continuous chatter and includes reed and sedge warblers, reed bunting and even a bittern, with its booming, foghorn-like call.
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2min
May 02, 2014 Heather Moorland Dawn Chorus
Tweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about British birds inspired by their calls and songs.
David Attenborough presents the second of four recordings marking the dawn chorus, this time the heather moors of Allendale in Northumberland. Songs featured are that of the curlew, skylark, golden plover and redshank.
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2min
May 01, 2014 Woodland Dawn Chorus
Tweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about British birds inspired by their calls and songs.

David Attenborough presents a dawn chorus recorded in Rutland Water. The outpouring of song is so dense that it is almost impossible to single out individual species but includes blackbirds, song thrushes, robins and newly-arrived migrants like garden warblers.
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2min
April 30, 2014 Stone Curlew
Tweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about our British birds inspired by their calls and songs.

Kate Humble presents the stone curlew. Stone curlews belong to a family known as 'thick-knees' but their country name of 'goggle-eyed plover' suits them better. Their huge staring yellow eyes serve them well at night when they're most active. By day, they lie up on sparse grassland or heath where their streaky brown-and-white plumage camouflages them superbly.
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2min
April 29, 2014 Fulmar
Kate Humble presents the fulmar, a familiar cliff nesting seabird during the breeding season. For the rest of the year fulmar can be found over the cold subarctic northern oceans of the Atlantic and the Pacific. Coming to land only to breed, these tubenose birds despite resembling other seabirds, are closely related to petrels and albatrosses.
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2min
April 28, 2014 Red-throated Diver
Tweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about our British birds inspired by their calls and songs.

Kate Humble presents the red-throated diver. The eerie wails of a red-throated diver were supposed to foretell rain. In Shetland the red-throated diver is called the "rain goose" but anyone who knows the island knows that rain is never far away. Like all divers, red-throats are handsome birds with sharp bills, perfect for catching fish. In summer they have a rusty throat patch and zebra-stripes on the back of their neck but in winter they're mainly pearly grey and white.
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2min
April 25, 2014 Goosander
Tweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about our British birds inspired by their calls and songs.

Kate Humble presents the goosander. Goosanders are handsome ducks and belong to a group known as 'sawbills' because their long slender bills are lined with backward pointing 'teeth', for gripping slippery fish. Underwater they're as agile as otters, chasing fish in raging currents or nosing for them under riverbanks.
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2min
April 24, 2014 Ruddy Duck
Tweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about our British birds inspired by their calls and songs.

Kate Humble presents the ruddy duck. Ruddy ducks are natives of North America. In the late 1950s and early 1960s several ruddy ducks escaped from the Wildfowl Trust's collection at Slimbridge and within 30 years they had become established breeding birds in the UK. Some even migrated to Spain where they mated with a very rare threatened relative, the white-headed duck. Many ornithologists believed that the resulting hybrids threatened to undermine years of conservation work in Spain, so after taking scientific advice, the UK government set out to eradicate the ruddy duck. This action has reduced our population to a handful so your best chance of hearing the courtship display is by visiting a wildfowl collection.
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2min

FAQs about Tweet of the Day:

How many episodes does Tweet of the Day have?

The podcast currently has 735 episodes available.