Dawn Chorus

As many early risers know, one of the best things about waking with the sun is having a quiet house to oneself for a bit and listening to the dawn chorus from the birds outside. That first cup of coffee tastes best when accompanied by an early-morning serenade and it can often be one of life’s simple pleasures. It’s good to know then, that this daily burst of song is enjoyed underwater as well, created not by birds of course, but by fish.

Scientists have long known that individual fish will often use sound for a variety of reasons, from keeping in touch whilst hunting to attracting a potential mate. But it’s only recently that they’ve recorded deliberate “choruses” created by groups of fish deliberately overlapping their songs together in a joint effort. Scientists in Perth recorded vocal fish in the coastal waters of Western Australia over an 18-month period and identified seven distinct choruses happening at dawn and dusk.

Black Jewfish, Grunters and Batfish all get in on the performance, creating a huge variety of squawks, burbles and pops that mimic everything from foghorns to electric buzzers. The current theory is that these orchestrated daily choruses are purely territorial, just like those of birds in a forest, but the recordings are a useful tool to help monitor the fish and their surprisingly noisy ecosystem.