Why is there a dawn chorus? The song of birds at dawn has been celebrated in poetry and prose for many years. In the Middle Ages, people said that the birds sang in praise of God. More recently, there was the feeling that birds sang to welcome the rising of the sun, which meant food, warmth and activity. Scientists now think that the dawn chorus is made up of the warning signals of each bird as it re-establishes its territory. A robin, incidentally, has a particularly strong sense of territory.