Nuremberg (dpa/lby) - The "Vogelphilipp" has never had so much work in the past seven years: the bird voice hotline of the Federal Nature Conservation Association (BN) has set a new record with around 5000 submissions this year, as the BN on Wednesday in Nuremberg announced.
During the campaign, it was again possible to record birdsong with the WhatsApp voice function and send it directly to the BN. The bird sound expert Philipp Herrmann, known as "Vogelphilipp", listened to the recordings and responded to WhatsApp which bird it was exactly.
Since the start of the campaign seven years ago, the number of participants has increased every year, said a spokeswoman for the BN. While the bird call hotline can be reached in April and May, the BN expert is now almost exclusively dealing with the many inquiries.
This year, the song of the great tit was the most frequently submitted, followed by chaffinch, robin, blackcap and blackbird. "I found a Great Reed Warbler very curious, which paused while passing through a garden and aroused the owner's interest with its hard, loud voice. You don't hear that often and I was very happy," explained Philipp Herrmann.
It was also noticeable that more nightingale songs were sent than in previous years. From the middle of April, male nightingales sing mainly at night and sometimes even around the clock to attract females. "The singing really has star potential. There are even more than two hundred different twittering variants known," emphasized Herrmann.
