IF you’ve always intended to rise early enough to listen to the dawn chorus, but never quite managed the getting out of bed bit, then an exhibition coming to Cheeseburn later this month might just be enough to inspire you.

It’s been co-ordinated by lead artist Mike Collier and centres on different interpretations of bird song.

And if the soaraway success of Radio Four’s Tweet of the Day is anything to go by, Dawn Chorus should be a popular draw.

For Mike, whose work is very influenced by direct encounters with the landscape, it’s a perfect subject and one that has completely absorbed him over the past year.

Mike set up the University of Sunderland’s Walking, Art, Landskip and Knowledge research group or W.A.L.K. and six years ago, he worked with Tarset-based Visual Arts in Rural Communities to produce an exhibition in response to a 100km walk from the mouth of the Tyne to Thorneyburn.

Accompanying him then was Keith Bowey, the naturalist who led the reintroduction of red kites in the North-East, and for Dawn Chorus the two have reunited. It was May last year that the pair first drove to Stamfordham at silly o’clock one morning to hear what Cheeseburn Sculpture’s feathered friends had to offer.

“We got here for about 4.30am,” Mike says. “We’ve done quite a few dawn choruses together and it’s a great exercise in beginning to tune yourself into listening as well as seeing.

“To start with you will still hear tawny owls, then the robins, blackbirds, thrushes and wrens might join in, with maybe a chiffchaff.

“You reach a crescendo between five and six am when you get all the birds singing together and it’s really beautiful.”

Mike worked with sound recordist, Geoff Sample, the BBC wildlife sound recordist from Wooler, who is one of the contributors to Tweet of the Day.

Geoff’s Northumberland-based recordings of the birds Mike and Keith had noted down during their dawn chorus experience were then turned into 16 sonograms.

“A sonogram is a linear way of creating sound, but we turned these into a simple musical notation system called neumes and the composer and musician Bennett Hogg is going to have voices sing these,” explained Mike.

Mike also used the skills of other artists to transform the linear sonograms into circular ‘songs’ which Tina Webb is printing onto panes of glass that will form part of Mike’s installation.

Glass artist Ayako Tani, who is based at Sunderland’s National Glass Centre, is also creating a tinkling glass chandelier inspired by the dawn chorus, whilst poet Jake Campbell is providing the words.

This particular exhibition is the forerunner of a much bigger project that Mike Collier hopes to take on.

“Did you know that birds have regional accents?,” he said.

“Bennett, Geoff and all of us are now looking to do a series of dawn chorus recordings around the country if we can get the funding.

“ Bennett and Andrew will then work with the sonograms we get, and the idea is to show people visually that local environments are really important and that birds have different cultures.

“We think of ourselves as lording it over everything, and actually birds are cultural animals and we need to respect them for what they are and not what use they can be to us,” Mike added.

Cheeseburn’s curator Matthew Jarrett said: “The Dawn Chorus captures people’s imagination and it is anticipated that, in using such an accessible theme, this project will engage new audiences in contemporary art at Cheeseburn.

l The exhibition can be visited during Cheeseburn’s open weekends on August 26-28 and September 2-3.