NEW DELHI: The vibrant dawn chorus of birds singing from Soor Sarovar Bird Sanctuary Agra and 13 other European countries is to be broadcast live on All India Radio to celebrate International Dawn Chorus Day on 7 May 2017.

This follows collaboration between All India Radio through its External Services Division with Ireland's RTÉ Radio, the European Broadcasting Union, and Bird Life International.

Experts from Norway, Iceland, Netherlands, Finland, Lithuania, Spain, Malta, Poland, Austria and BBC Radio 4 besides India will bring the strains of the local dawn chorus from right across Europe.

This special programme can be heard from 4:30 am to 7 am and 9.30 am to 10.30 am on 7 May 2017 on the Rajdhani channel (666kHz) and FM Rainbow channels of All India Radio.

AIR DG F Sheheryar said, “This intercontinental Ornitho Serenade where birds of Europe and India shall sing together will be world’s most impressive and renowned natural concert and symphony”. He added that this is first ever attempted by All India Radio to team up with other international broadcasters in such a large scale; the programme will go a long way in inculcating love for nature and sensitizing people especially the younger generation towards conservation of our ecosystem particularly different species of birds.

International Dawn Chorus Day is marked worldwide on the first Sunday of May every year to appreciate the primordial symphony of nature. The Dawn Chorus is the collective sound of birds singing at the start of a new day. Usually, the males sing for two reasons: to hold territory and attract a mate. As the sun rises in East, it moves like a great wave across the face of Earth. As it does, the birds wake up and burst into song.

In this programme, one will get to listen to bird song from twenty different locations, spanning six time zones across thirteen countries, as the broadcast would traverse every latitude and longitude from India to Iceland, following the wave of light as it reveals this ornithological opera!

With All India Radio joining for the first time, dawn chorus broadcast is bursting beyond the borders of Europe.

AIR External Services Division Director Amlan Jyoti Mazumdar said this programme points to the increasing cooperation between All India Radio and other international broadcasters in recent years.

He added that while presenter Derek Mooney of RTE Radio Ireland and his team of ornithologists shall present the programme from Saint Anne's Park in Dublin, the Indian part of the programme will be coordinated by Sh. Dominic Thomas, one of the most decorated Producers of All India Radio along with ace broadcaster Sunit Tandon and Ornithologists Surya Prakash from JNU and Ambassador Sudhir Vyas.