J.M.C. Hutchinson 2002. Two explanations of the dawn chorus compared: how monotonically changing light levels favour a short break from singing. Animal Behaviour 64:527–539.


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Update (no longer maintained, I'm afraid)

Other recent papers stressing the influence of light in determining the timing of the dawn chorus are Berg, Brumfield & Apanius (2006) and Miller (2006). Dalziell & Cockburn (2007) report anecdotally that light levels determine when the dawn chorus starts, which obscures any relationship between total song output and other male attributes in Superb Fairy-wrens. But note that Fuller, Warren & Gaston (2007) consider noise pollution much more important than light pollution.
Barnett, A.C. & Briskie, J.V. (2007) is in agreement with Fig. 6 in finding no effect of food supplementation on the timing of the start of the dawn chorus (but there was an effect on intensity of singing).
Amrhein & Erne (2006) discuss pauses in the song output of wrens at sunrise.
Sexton, Murphy, Redmond & Dolan (2007) have excellent data on the timing and song rate in the dawn chorus of individual Eastern Kingbirds. There is no sign of a pause in song output. Unfortunately they did not test for an influence of light levels, but they did find no influence of temperature (perhaps not surprising given that observations were in summer); these comments apply equally to Berg et al. (2005). Hardouin, Robert & Bretagnolle (2008) found mixed effects of temperature on dusk song output in a nocturnally feeding owl, but perhaps in such a system temperatures when feeding would be expected to matter more than the warmer daytime temperatures.
Lein (2007) presents detailed data on the rise and fall in singing rate through a dawn chorus.
Rickel & Genin (2005) look at twighlight transitions in foraging behaviour in fish.

My update to an earlier paper in this series mentions further papers of relevance to the topic.


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