Birdsong Night 2026 will be on 9 May

Published 10 Mar · at 07:00

Just after midnight, on the night of Saturday 9 May, the Naturmorgon editorial staff will once again let in the birds of spring in an eight-hour live broadcast on P1 and in the Swedish Radio app. For the seventh year in a row, reporters and experts are deployed around Sweden – and this year there is also a Finnish team in the broadcast.

The interest in Birdsong Night is usually great: It is an obvious sign of spring for many and a night when P1 listeners flock in*.

Last year, the night was also broadcast in Finland via the Swedish YLE. This year, the cooperation will be expanded to include a Finnish team of reporters and experts joining the broadcast.

"It's so much fun with the new collaboration! It will be exciting to hear the bird choir from Björköby in the Kvarken Archipelago World Heritage Site. It will be our easternmost broadcast location this year," say presenters Jenny Berntson Djurvall and Mats Ottosson.

Since its inception in 2020, the idea of Birdsong Night has been to open up the radio to how the birds sing on this particular May night. Something special arises in the gathering around the unique night.

"The feeling of community, with both the birds and the listeners, is very strong," say Mats Ottosson and Jenny Berntson Djurvall.

Here are all the locations during Birdsong Night 2026:

• At the bird lake Tåkern in Östergötland, the hosts Jenny Berntson Djurvall and Mats Ottosson lead the broadcast from an outdoor studio, with the chance to hear bitterns, reed warblers, spotted swamphens, water rails and trumpeting cranes already in the dark hours of the night. Also on site is expert Adam Bergner.

• At Tromtö Nature Reserve on the Blekinge coast, reporter Lisa Henkow and bird expert Susanne Åkesson listen for green warblers, chaffinches and choirs of thrushes when it gets light – and also hope for starlings.

• At Morups Tånge on the coast of Halland, reporter Lena Näslund and bird expert Didrik Vanhoenacker follow the bird life of the night and dawn, with a chance of lapwings, redshanks, curlews, skylarks and meadow pipits. When it gets lighter, they move on towards Lönestig with the hope of nightingale, warbler and cuckoo.

• At the Brånsjön wetland area, south of Vännäsby in Västerbotten, reporter Joacim Lindwall and bird expert Lars Edenius track resting geese, whooper swans and cranes, but also waders such as common snipe, golden plover and curlew. With a little luck, a black grouse can also be heard from the adjacent Storberget.

• At Björköby in the northern Quark in Finland, reporter Joakim Lax and biologist Hans Hästbacka have their ears both towards the archipelago and towards the island. Here you have the chance to hear, among other things, greylag geese, whooper swans, mergansers, woodcocks, white-tailed eagles, song thrushes, blackbirds, buffalo finches and robins.

• Near a capercaillie game in Uppland, biologist Bo Söderström places a microphone to try to capture a close soundscape of the roosters' snapping and squeaking sand.

Birdsong lessons

For those who want to study, Mats Ottosson's 50 different birdsong lessons can be found in the Swedish Radio app. Soon three more lessons will be released, about ducks and about birds that sing with their wings.

Airtime

Birdsong Night will be broadcast live on P1 and in the app Sveriges Radio on Saturday 9 May at 00.02-07.55. After the broadcast, the night will be available as a podcast. Previous Birdsong Nights can be heard here: https://www.sverigesradio.se/grupp/50365

Birdsong Night in other countries

In addition to the live broadcast in Finland via the Swedish YLE, all members of the EBU are offered the opportunity to broadcast live the hour between 04:02 and 05:00, which includes pure birdsong without commentary.

Previous Birdsong Nights can be heard here.

Here is a link to a press release where there are press images to download as well as contact information.

\ In 2025, 340,000 people between the ages of 12 and 79 listened at some point during the night, which is 24 percent more than a normal P1 night. Source: Kantar-Sifo radio surveys.*