How to Identify Common UK Lakeside Birds by Call

Why Still Mornings Carry Sound So Well

Water is a superb acoustician. A flat, windless surface reflects sound instead of scattering it, so a call given fifty metres out across a reservoir arrives at your ear a fraction tighter and cleaner than it would in a wood. On a still dawn, lowland lakes, gravel pits and canal basins become natural auditoriums: the heron's croak carries, the swan's wingbeats throb, and the ticking of a coot two hundred metres away can sound as though it is at your elbow.

Choose your morning carefully. Anything up to a light air (force 1 to 2 on the Beaufort scale) is ideal; once white-caps appear, most of the fine detail is lost. Pick a spot with clear sightlines to open water and to a fringe of reeds, because those two habitats hold different voices. Arrive half an hour before sunrise, stand still for five minutes without speaking, and let your ears adjust to the quiet. What sounds like silence at first will quickly fill up.

The Coot: Metallic Ticking and Spluttering Rows

The coot is the noisiest bird on most British lakes. It is all black with a bright white bill and frontal shield — a chalky shield that looks as though it has been bleached — and lobed toes rather than webbed feet. You will find it out on the open water, often in loose flocks, and it quarrels more or less constantly.

Its signature is a sharp, clipped, metallic "kik" or "kowk", like a small hammer tapping a tin can. Coots often give this in a ticking series, evenly spaced, and the sound carries well because the pitch is high and hard. When two birds fall out — which is often — the ticking dissolves into a wet, throaty splutter, a spluttering chatter delivered while the birds charge one another half-running across the surface with wings raised. If you hear hard ticking followed by a splash and a scuffle, that is unmistakably coots. They are also vocal at night, so a still evening can be worth as much as a dawn.

The Moorhen: A Sharp Alarm and a Jerky Tail

The moorhen is the coot's shyer cousin, and telling them apart is the first skill to learn. Moorhens have a red bill with a yellow tip, a thin white line along the flank and a bright white undertail that flashes when they flick. They prefer the edges: muddy margins, overhanging willow, the mouth of a ditch, stands of iris and sedge.

Where the coot ticks, the moorhen explodes. Its alarm is a sudden, sharp "kurruk!" — higher, harsher and less metallic, and usually accompanied by a brisk tail flick and a dash for cover. The everyday contact call is quieter: a low, clucking, bubbling purr as a bird works along the waterline under the bushes. As a rough rule, a coot sounds like tin and a moorhen sounds like a wooden rattle with a squeak on top.

Grebes: Whinnies, Hoorays and Grunts

Two grebes are worth learning, and both are far more often heard than seen.

The little grebe, or dabchick, is a small, dumpy, tailless bird that dives rather than flies when alarmed. Its song is a descending, giggling trill — a whinny, exactly like a tiny horse laughing, and dropping in pitch as it runs. It also gives a crisp, abrupt "bit" as a contact note. A little grebe can hide in a patch of open water the size of a dining table and still give itself away every few minutes.

The great crested grebe is the elegant one: long neck, dagger bill, and in spring a rakish pair of head tufts. Its most famous voice is the "hooray" call, a braying, two-part cry — something like kraa-orr — that rolls across the whole lake and is often heard after dark. Alongside it you will hear a harsh, barking "krrk" and soft trilling notes exchanged between paired birds during their weed-dance displays.

• Little grebe: high, giggling whinny that falls in pitch, plus a sharp "bit".
• Great crested grebe: low, braying two-part "hooray" that carries the length of the water.

Swans, Mallards and the Rest of the Chorus

The mute swan is not mute at all. Close up it hisses; to its cygnets it gives soft, grunting "hoo" contact calls; and in flight its wings produce a slow, throbbing hum you will often hear before you look up. Young cygnets whistle, a thin, piping note that is easy to mistake for a wader.

The mallard's loud, descending quack series is the familiar one — but it belongs to the female. The drake's voice is a softer, rasping "raeb", which many people misattribute to something else entirely. Tufted ducks are mostly silent, giving only a quiet "karr", while Canada geese supply the honking you can hear across the county. Try not to assign every sound to the obvious bird; half the pleasure of waterside listening is discovering how much is going on behind the scenes.

Putting It Into Practice on the Bank

• Go early, go still. Aim for wind below force 2, no rain, and a temperature that has dropped overnight.
• Learn three species at a time — coot, moorhen and little grebe — until the distinction is automatic, then add grebes and swans.
• Record calls on your phone and check them at home over a cup of tea. Keep brief notes: date, weather, what you saw as well as heard.
• Attach every sound to a bird you can actually see whenever possible. A call with a face is a call you will not forget.
• Avoid playback during spring and summer, and never approach nesting reedbeds. Keep to the path and keep dogs out of the water.
• Late autumn suits beginners best: rafts of coots, wintering grebes and fewer leaves to deaden the sound.

Start with one bird. Sit beside a familiar stretch of water, wait for the ticking to begin, and let the rest of the chorus arrange itself around it. Within a few mornings you will hear the lake as regulars do — not as a quiet place, but as a busy, argumentative, thoroughly sociable one.