Island Life

There is something romantic about island life and about being cut-off from the mainland and its ways. It is a feeling that is hard to describe, not least in terms of its origins, but I wonder if the feeling stems from having to look inward rather than outward. By focussing on the routine of island living you are freed from the unnecessary adornments of a globalised society, able to concentrate on the local and the present.

I find the feeling strongest on small, barely habited, islands, particularly those scattered along our western seaboard: from the Hebrides in the north to Flat Holm in the south. Even Flat Holm, a ten-minute sprint by rib from Cardiff Bay, shares the sense of comfortable isolation. Situated in the middle of the Bristol Channel and barely 500m wide at its longest point, the island and its scatter of buildings has a long history of use. In this time of economic belt-tightening, Flat Holm’s future has become uncertain; the council landowners allegedly keen to jettison their responsibilities for the island and its heritage. The ruins of a cholera hospital, of a naval garrison and of a Victorian rainwater collection system are testament to changing uses down through the years. Like many of our marginal islands, Flat Holm has been both protector and nurse to previous generations.

It is also a seabird island. Too far up the Bristol Channel to attract nesting auks or shags, the island is instead home to a colony of some 4,000 lesser black-backed gulls, fewer herring gulls, a pair of ravens and a pair of cliff nesting peregrines. A few pairs of woodpigeons breed in some low elder woodland, but these get hammered by the peregrines, while blackbird, dunnock, wren and two species of pipit just about make up the avian community.

Other islands may differ in their communities – Steep Holm, the neighbouring island to Flat Holm, has cormorants and, bizarrely, muntjac deer (an introduction) – but they share the same sense of ease. Of course, the realities of living year-round on a small island will be very different from the few days I get to spend on my trips. Even so, I suspect it would prove to be a rewarding way in which to live.

Holt Blackbirds

It was great to see the Holt blackbird project feature on BBC SpringWatch the other week and to read follow-up pieces in the local and regional media. The project, which is operated by Dave Leech, underlines the tremendous things that volunteers and communities can do for our understanding of wildlife populations. 

Dave, a professional ornithologist and a volunteer bird ringer for the Thetford-based BTO (British Trust for Ornithology), has been fitting special coloured rings to the blackbirds using his parents’ garden in Holt for a number of years. The combination of colours used means that individual birds can be identified without needing to be recaptured. Sightings of the birds, made by the local community, are then used to build up a picture of the local movements and survival of individual birds, providing very valuable information that reveals how the lives of these suburban blackbirds compare with their country cousins. The project has also shown just how many individual blackbirds may use a garden during the course of a day, with 74 different individuals recorded from one garden in Holt.

The use of colour rings in this way is not just restricted to blackbirds. Elsewhere in Norfolk there are many other projects looking at everything from mute swans to woodpigeons and gulls. Being able to identify individual birds in the field delivers much-needed information on survival rates and how these may change over time or vary between different age or sex classes. It can also be used to study behaviour and breeding success.

Judging by the responses being seen on social media and in the press, the Holt blackbird project has captured the imagination of householders living locally and now on the lookout for Dave’s birds. The partnership that has been formed between Dave, the researcher, and the community of observers serves to underline the power of citizen science. Having a community watching for these birds, feeds many more observations into Dave’s dataset, increasing the material available for his analyses and delivering more robust scientific outputs. The project does more than this, however, because it also engages more of us with the natural world and with the efforts being made to understand and to conserve the wildlife with which we share our gardens and our countryside.

All the birds of England

It is a still dawn, warm for the time of the year but free from the mist that has been a feature of recent days. From this hilltop, which watches over the deeply wooded valley of my childhood, I can hear the rich songs of a dozen or more blackbirds. This melodic and reverberant chorus reminds me of ‘Aldestrop’, a poem written by Edward Thomas almost a century ago.

The poem centres on a break in a railway journey, made as a train halted at Adlestrop station in Gloucestershire in June 1914. The lines conjure up a moment in time, delivering a strong sense of place and of the landscape within which the station sat. While the poet does not disembark from his train during this brief pause in his journey west, the memory of that stop is captured and retained, to be released some years later when pencil is put to paper. Thomas was late to poetry, his 142 poems coming in a brief two-year period before his death in France.

The final lines of the poem link the station with the English shires and the wider landscape within which it is located, Adlestrop becoming England. The device used to deliver this sense of connection is that of singing blackbirds. Noting the blackbird song that he can hear from the train, Thomas senses that elsewhere across England, extending outwards from this single point, are other singing blackbirds; ‘’all the birds of Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire’, linked to one another in a great and expanding ripple of song.

This poignant poem is a favourite with anthologists and is often used to conjure up the landscape of southern England. Aldestrop station was a victim of Beeching’s cuts and, looking back from this modern, 21st Century world, the poem has an elegiac quality, mourning the passing of a lost England. The chorus of blackbird song continues, however, and if you are fortunate enough to find yourself in the countryside on a spring morning such as this, then you can experience the sense of connectedness that comes from picking out the individual blackbirds who sing at each other from across the landscape. Despite the changes we have made to the landscape, the blackbirds continue to deliver their song.

A mild end to the year

December has been rather mild overall and there have been times when, working outside, I have been most comfortable in a t-shirt. The mild weather has had an effect on our wildlife too, with a wider range of bird song evident and a distinct shortage of birds coming to visit the garden feeders. Judging by the moth wings scattered on the floor of the passageway at the side of our house, a brown long-eared bat has been equally active over recent weeks.

Coming off the back of a colder spell early in the month, the warm damp air that pushed up from the Azores mid-month seems to have tricked some birds into thinking that spring was on its way. In addition to the characteristic winter song of robin, which adds a melancholy air to the winter months, blackbird, mistle thrush, dunnock and woodpigeon were all to be heard in song from the garden. With the exception of dunnock, these are species that often make their first nesting attempt very early in the year and I would not be surprised to learn of individuals sat on eggs during the first half of January. Even a pair of mute swans on the river were reinforcing their pair bond with display behaviour more usually seen in spring.

That the garden feeders have been so quiet is not just a reflection of the mild conditions, which reduce the energetic stresses faced by small birds, but also the size of the autumn seed and berry crop. The 2013 crop of woodland and hedgerow fruits and seeds has been so abundant that it continues to last well into the winter months. No doubt the lack of a heavy frost has also played its part, since this often see the berries drop to the ground, where they then become accessible to small mammals and other wildlife. While the garden is quiet, the local woods are still busy with birds and mobile flocks of tits and finches can be found feeding among the trees. Siskin and lesser redpoll have been favouring the riverside alders; should the weather turn cold early in the New Year then I would expect the garden feeding station to become a hive of activity.

Patterned plumage

The local blackbirds have successfully fledged another brood. The tropical-sounding chirps of the youngsters have been evident for several days now, even if the birds themselves have not. The parent blackbirds divide their efforts between the offspring, each chick most likely tucked up in cover somewhere around the garden, having just left the nest. The calls attract my attention and one hopes that the local cats are elsewhere at this critical stage.

It was only this morning that I saw the chicks for the first time, now developed enough to venture from cover to seek food around the bird table and from the large border in which it stands. It is clear that these youngsters have a lot to learn. Instinctively, they seem to peck at everything, swallowing some items that I cannot imagine would prove edible. So long as they don’t prove to be toxic no harm should be done. The adults look fatigued, their plumage tatty and suggestive of a long and difficult season. I suspect that this will be the last brood of the year for these birds and I wonder how many chicks they have managed to get off since the first nesting attempt, made many months ago.

Other blackbird youngsters have already started to moult through some of their body feathers, the warm gingery browns of youth being replaced by the more sombre feathers of adulthood. These young birds look most peculiar, like a parlour game in which two different species have been spliced together to form some new creature. It is easy to see why they cause confusion among those just starting out with birdwatching; such intermediate plumages are often absent from field guides. The same thing happens with young starlings which, part way through their moult, are neither one thing nor the other.

Most young birds will have left the nest with their body plumage not fully developed. All the effort has been directed towards attaining a size at which the chick can leave the nest and fly. In the warmth of summer the full complement of body feathers can wait a few weeks. Once the chick has become safely independent then it can add the extra feathers in preparation for what lies ahead. For these young blackbirds the future is likely to be a winter spent here in Britain, perhaps with some local movement out of town to feed on autumn’s bounty and a period of dispersal to where, next year, they will set up territories of their own. For other birds, like the nestling swifts, the future holds a staggering journey south, to wintering grounds that stretch beyond the equator. The next few weeks will be critical, as preparations are fine tuned and journeys begun.

A slow start to spring

Despite the tantalizing period of exceptionally early spring warmth, it has been something of a slow start to the season. There have been some early nests, with young Robins, Song Thrushes and Blackbirds evident in many gardens across the county, but other individuals were held up by the returning cold conditions. Now, however, it feels as if the pace is quickening.

We have seen a succession of arrivals, as returning summer migrants have been quick to settle on favoured breeding territories and deliver song. The Chiffchaffs were the first of these to be noticed here, around the brecks, followed by Woodlark, Blackcap, Willow Warbler and, most recently, Whitethroat. Early Reed and Sedge Warblers appeared late-month, with numbers of these reed- and sedge-bed songsters now increasing. The hirundines (swallows and martins) were slow to return in numbers and my first sightings of these summer visitors were behind those of recent years.

We have also had a smattering of passage migrants, in particular a good arrival of Ring Ouzels. These striking thrushes resemble a large Blackbird but with beautiful sculptured plumage markings and, in adult males, a white crescent around the throat. We have also seen some less common visitors in the shape of at least two Hoopoes, continental breeders that have overshot their breeding grounds off the back of southerly winds. They won’t linger, however, and will soon reorientate to return south. One of the most fascinating aspects of the unfolding migration has been the return of the Cuckoos, fitted with satellite tags by the BTO. Regular updates on their progress continue to appear on the BTO website (www.bto.org/cuckoos). The five tagged last summer, were all captured in East Anglia and it will be interesting to see if they return to the same sites.

The pattern of activity seen in our birds has been mirrored in the county’s butterflies, with a good number of early reports of species that overwinter in the adult form, followed by several lean weeks in which few sightings were forthcoming. Other species are now being reported on the wing, including Orange Tip and Holly Blue, so it does feel as if the butterfly season is now properly underway. Other insects have been taking advantage of early season nectar, with good numbers of bumblebees foraging in my garden and quite a number of hoverflies as well. The changeable weather that we see at this time of the year does deliver something of a stop-start feel and while it can appear that spring is here to stay one morning, the next can suggest a return to winter. It is a great time of the year to be out and about though as each new sighting delivers a thrill.

Thrushes gather and turn to apples

It is only within the last few days that the birds have turned to the piles of apples, half-hidden by snow, that have sat in the garden practically untouched for weeks. The combination of snow, still several inches deep here in my parent’s garden on the Sussex border, and the berry larder now stripped bare, has driven the thrushes to seek out other opportunities, drawing in Fieldfares and Redwings from the frozen farmland fields and empty hedgerows. There must be a couple of dozen birds in and amongst the low bushes and the long dead architecture of summer’s growth. Blackbirds dominate numerically but it is the larger, more robust, Fieldfares that will have the ultimate say in the pecking order. The small, dark Redwings, with their prominent white eye-stripe and soft call are the birds that catch my eye though. I have fond memories of handling dozens of these Nordic visitors whilst ringing at a Norfolk orchard near Ashill and they are a very rare visitor to my Norfolk garden.

The Redwings are true nomads; pushing south in autumn from their northern breeding grounds they can be heard at night, their soft calls a much-stated omen of the approaching winter. The numbers wintering here are variable, reflecting the changing patterns of food availability and the vagaries of the weather. An individual wintering here in one year could just as easily be found wintering in northern Italy the following year. Because of their size and their preference for soil-dwelling invertebrates, Redwings can struggle when the winter weather is at its worst. Hard frosts and snow cover prevent access to favoured foods and, once the berry crop has also been depleted, they can struggle to find food. It is then that their mobility comes into play, the birds moving further south and west in search of food and more favourable conditions. Those that remain here will increase their use of orchards and gardens, with rural gardens more heavily used than suburban ones.

In with the Redwings there is a single Song Thrush, a species which has been seen less often over recent weeks if the reports that I have received are truly part of a wider pattern. Of similar size to the Redwings, the Song Thrush might also have been struggling with the unfavourable weather conditions. Again, individuals could have been forced south by the weather but some may have remained and succumbed to the bitter cold. We will have to wait for spring to find out.

The apples have become the focus of attention because there is little else left accessible. As birds jostle for this sweet resource, it is reassuring to know that this part of the apple crop has found a good home

Summer heat

July's heat drives me to seek out the shade offered by our young stand of Hazel. These adolescent trees, still untidy in habit, are one of the greenest things left in the garden; everything else looks faded and listless, the bone-dry soil holding little relief for thirsty plants.

It is easy to overlook the impact of the summer heat on our wildlife. While we can retreat to the cool of the thick-walled cottage or the deep shade offered by a patch of woodland, other creatures remain exposed to the full intensity of the sun. This is certainly the case for the Reed Warblers whose reed bed nests often lack covering shade. The females will actively shade their helpless young, perching above them in the nest during the hottest part of the day. The females obviously feel the heat themselves, panting with bill wide open in an attempt to keep cool. Quite suddenly one of the females will 'collapse', tipping from her sitting position onto one side as if in a faint. The bird will then raise a wing high to the vertical. This seems to do the trick, perhaps exposing veins close to the surface under the wing and reducing her body temperature through heat exchange. Just as suddenly she will recover. It will be the youngest chicks - those still naked and helpless - who will suffer most in this incessant heat.

Some creatures clearly revel in the sun's rays; a female Blackbird in the garden basks on the warm slate path, her wing feathers spread and her body feathers fluffed up. Such basking helps to drive out feather parasites but comes at a price, the bird panting heavily in the heat and only able to remain in the open for short bouts before retreating to the relative cool of the summer borders. I have seen other birds indulge in this means of feather maintenance, including one of the local Robins, but others prefer the bird bath or make use of the now dusty soil to bathe. House Sparrows, in particular, seem rather fond of a dust bath.

Many of the insects seem to be doing well and Norfolk's moth traps positively bulge with hundreds of specimens caught on these sultry nights. This bodes well for the local bats, providing an abundance of prey, and presumably for the Nightjars nesting just a few miles away in the forest. Of course, such tinderbox conditions place all of the forest creatures at risk should a careless cigarette butt or piece of discarded glass bring about a forest fire. It is a time for us to be considerate, to keep our bird baths full (and clean) and to think of the consequences of lazy behaviour.

A song before dawn

Lying in bed in the half-light before dawn I can hear a chorus of bird song. The upward shift in temperatures has delivered the first signs of spring and it seems that many of the local birds are responding to this. The chorus is dominated by Blackbirds but interspersed with their rich melodic warblings are others, the plaintive tones of a Robin and the thrice-repetitive notes of a Song Thrush. This is a pleasant way to start the day, especially since it is a Sunday; the post office vans and lorries are silent, leaving the birds unchallenged in this urban soundscape.

Early season song lacks the volume of later in the year but it does provide you with an opportunity to pick out individual songsters and to become more familiar with their particular songs. It is also a time when you really notice just how many birds are singing in the dark before dawn. Later into the year and dawn will have already come and gone while you are still deep in slumber. The question of why birds sing early in the morning, often before dawn, is one that has interested researchers for many decades and even now, despite the amount of work that has been carried out, we still do not have a complete answer. One of the current hypotheses is that birds sing at this time of the day because it represents a trade-off between the conflicting needs to defend a territory and the need to find food to replace overnight energy losses. Fitter birds should be able to sing for longer, so their delivery of song at this hour could be used by females as a sign of the male’s quality.

Studies have revealed that the dawn chorus peaks at a time when the level of territorial intrusions by other males is at its peak. As such, a territory-holding male should proclaim his ownership of the territory in order to counter this threat. Because of the low light levels just prior to dawn, visual means of display are limited in their effectiveness and song offers a more suitable alternative, the bird being able to deliver his message to would-be intruders. The low light levels may also limit feeding opportunities and, while there may be enough light to sing from a favoured perch, there may not be sufficient light to locate food safely and effectively.

One interesting aspect of song production is that a number of species will quite happily sing during the darkness of night itself, particularly in the presence of street lighting. Some observers mistake such nocturnal warblings for the song of a Nightingale, when they are far more likely to be Robins and Blackbirds.

A baker's dozen

It’s that quiet time of the year, that brief midsummer lull between the sudden rush of spring and the boisterous climax to summer that heralds the arrival of a new generation of birds and insects. Admittedly there are a few young Blackbirds about, naïve and approachable, and the first of the late summer butterflies have been on the wing for a few days. However, a lot of the other more noticeable creatures (like birds and mammals) are quietly going about the business of breeding. This means that it is time to go in search of some of our less obvious insects, including the various bugs that feed on the lush summer vegetation. Some, like most of our grasshoppers and crickets are in their nymphal stages at the moment and look somewhat different from their final adult form. The same is true of the shieldbugs and many other insects. Others have yet to hatch, as evidenced by a cluster of 13 eggs, a baker’s dozen, neatly secreted on the underside of a leaf in the garden at work.

One of my colleagues brought the eggs in to show me, tiny off-white spheres which reminded me of the hundreds and thousands that used to decorate childhood treats. The 13 eggs were arranged so neatly, quite unlike the haphazard approach adopted by some insects. It was not entirely clear as to what sort of invertebrate had laid the eggs; were they the eggs of a moth or something altogether different? In order to find out, I kept the eggs and leaf in a suitable container, checked them daily and waited.

Just yesterday they hatched and I was delighted to see a little host of 13 tiny bugs sitting on top of the now empty egg cases. Over the last few days, a patterned line had appeared on the top of each egg, the shape reminiscent of the silhouette of a red kite in flight. Then the eggs darkened before hatching. I could see that these youngsters were baby shieldbugs, as nymphs they were more rounded in shape than they would be as an adult. Their pinkish-brown bodies strongly suggestive that they were, in fact, young green shieldbugs. The adult green shieldbug is the one that everyone seems to know, often encountered in gardens on ornamental shrubs, raspberries and even runner beans. The youngsters would remain next to the discarded egg cases until their first moult, after which they would attain a smart two-tone green and black livery. Rather than keep them in captivity, we returned them, and their leaf, back to the plant where they had been found. Perhaps we will see some of them again later in the year, or even next spring as adults.

An ideal location for a vacation

You may not realise it but your garden provides a winter retreat for a whole bunch of foreign visitors. In amongst your resident garden birds will be those that have arrived here from as far afield as Norway, Iceland or even Russia. The thing about these avian ‘tourists’ is that many of them go completely unnoticed. While visiting Bramblings, Waxwings and Fieldfares might stand out from the crowd because they don’t breed here, visiting Chaffinches, Greenfinches, Blackbirds and Robins don’t look any different from their resident counterparts. We only know that they are here because scientists across Europe regularly fit small metal rings to birds. In time, some of the birds fitted with rings are caught elsewhere by bird ringers; others fall victim to pet cats, fly into windows or collide with traffic. If somebody finds the bird, notices the ring and then contacts the address stamped into the ring, then the researchers can work out where the bird has gone and over what time period.

Thanks to the efforts of these scientists it has been possible to estimate, for example, that a minimum 12% of the Blackbirds in Britain outside of the breeding season actually come from overseas. Equally sizeable populations of various finches and other thrushes also winter here, collectively hinting at what an attractive destination a British garden makes. So why should Britain be so good in the winter? It may not seem as pleasant here as somewhere further south, for example the Mediterranean coast of Spain. However, Britain is actually surprisingly mild for its latitude during winter, warmed by the Gulf Stream and this means that birds can overwinter here in relative comfort. They are also closer to their breeding grounds than they would be if they had migrated further south. This is also advantageous because they do not have as far to go on the return leg in spring, thereby reducing the energy stores needed to get them home.

Of course, another reason why our gardens are so attractive is that they are often stocked full of food, thanks to our love of birds and willingness to feed them. Some of the visiting birds will have moved here over several months, following natural fruit and seed supplies and only reaching our shores once these stocks have run out. Not only that, but many gardens have conifers in which these birds can roost overnight, water which they can drink or in which they can bathe. So take a look out of your window and cast your eye over the Blackbirds fighting over apples on your lawn or the Starlings squabbling over your bird cake. Are these local birds or do some of them bicker with a continental accent?

Sunbathing in the vegetable patch

Given the weather of recent days, I would expect you to raise an eyebrow if I were to say that there had been a spot of sunbathing going on in our vegetable patch. Well, it’s true! There is a sheltered but sunny spot at the base of our bean poles, next to the outdoor tomatoes and just over from what is left of the broad beans. It is not actually me that has been doing the sunbathing – I wouldn’t inflict that on my neighbours – instead it is our resident male blackbird. In between his bouts of parental responsibility he has taken to making the most of the somewhat infrequent sunny interludes to let the sun go to work on his plumage.

A number of bird species appear to be regular participants in a spot of sunbathing, including robins, pheasants and, of course, blackbirds. Our cock blackbird settles down on the soil, spreading his wings and fluffing up his body plumage. By doing so he is maximising the amount of plumage that is exposed to the sun’s rays. It is thought that this serves two functions: first, it helps the all-important preen oil spread across the feather surface, working to keep the plumage in good condition. Additionally, it is thought that by exposing the plumage to the sun, small parasites like feather mites can be controlled more effectively.

Not all birds adopt this technique. Another part of our garden, beneath one of our thicker shrubs, is sometimes used by the visiting house sparrows for dust bathing. The loose, friable soil is worked through the plumage by a series of motions that closely resemble those used for more conventional bathing in water. The bird thrusts down and forward with its chest, the wings working to flick soil particles up and over the body. It may then lean, first to one and then to the other, and repeat the effort.

There are even some of our visiting birds that chose to shower in the garden. In the case of the dunnock this is accomplished by moving through wet vegetation (from rain or dew), while the woodpigeons seem to like nothing better than sit out in the rain. It is clear from their actions that this is not simply a case of being caught in the open and reluctantly accepting that they are getting wet. Instead, they adopt the ridiculous position of lifting one wing up into the air and holding it there, as if they are allowing the rain to wet the underside of their wing. All of these different ablutions serve a similar purpose – to keep the plumage in good conditions and, by doing so, keep the bird warm and fit for flight.

Parenthood takes its toll

Our cock blackbird and his mate are looking a bit frayed around the edges, perhaps unsurprising now that they are on their third nesting attempt. The first attempt took place several weeks ago and was successful, with two fledglings harassing their father for food with plaintive begging calls. A second nesting attempt was initiated by frenetic nest building activity in a small holly bush growing against my neighbour’s wall. The female seemed to take great delight in pulling apart one of my wall-mounted baskets to find suitable fibres with which to line the nest. The two birds were dutiful parents and it was not long before they were again busy feeding growing chicks. Then, one evening and with much agitation, they appear to have lost their chicks to one of the many neighbourhood cats. The nest, it seems, was easily accessible and there was nothing that the parents could do. Two days later and the female was doing her best to finish off my wall-mounted basket, showering the ground with soil. She might as well have nested in it! In the event, she built a new nest deep within the climbing rose that sprawls across the timber arch by our pond. At least this site should be safe from the cats. The first of her three (possibly four) eggs was laid nine days ago and she is now busy incubating, her tail or head just visible – depending upon how she is sitting.

Throughout all this the pair have been rather endearing, following us around the garden and full of optimistic expectation that our gardening activities will reveal some tasty morsel or other. The hen is more trusting than her mate and will often approach within a foot or so when I am planting or weeding. His contribution to our general enjoyment comes in the form of a serenade, delivered at various times throughout the day from the top of the shed or next door’s apple tree. The rich blend of notes provides a wonderful backdrop to a warm summer evening or a gentle introduction to a new day. While his song may have the crisp signature of a smart concert musician, his appearance is becoming more unkempt by the day. Fatherhood, it seems, takes a heavy toll on your appearance. The underlying reason for the state of his plumage, in particular his body feathers, is that this third breeding attempt is cutting into his annual moult. Over the next few weeks he will replace his feathers in a regimented order, renewing worn and damaged ones and gaining a smart new appearance. The hen too will need to moult but right now she has other things on her mind.

Winter songsters

There have been a few warmer days of late, premature hints of a spring that is still a number of weeks away. Such teasing glimpses make February burdensome – winter can’t still be upon us. I want to get out and watch nature springing into life. I am not the only one eager to get going, for outside in the early morning darkness a song thrush is singing; its strident notes striking out above the plaintive winter song of a robin. The robin is one of the few birds to defend a territory year round and this is why its wistful tunes can be heard throughout the winter months. But the song thrush is a less regular songster at this time of the year and its performance is an optimistic sign that winter will soon be over.

The impression ones gets when listening to a song thrush is of a singer that enjoys the act of performance, something that is reflected in the bold clarity of the delivered phrases and the deceptive simplicity of structure. Each song thrush will have a repertoire of some 100 or so different phrases and appears to select from these almost at random, putting several together and often repeating a sequence a number of times over. This fondness for a rhythmic repetition of repeated phrases may be one of the reasons why the song thrush features so prominently in poetry. One of the best examples of this comes in Tennyson’s ‘The Throstle’ but others, including Thomas Hardy, Robert Browning and Edward Thomas, all draw on this English songster. Edward Thomas, undoubtedly the least well-known of these poets, featured our various thrushes in 15 or so of his 142 poems and his use of colloquial speech rhythms is well-suited to the repetitive nature of the song.

The presence of repeated phrases is characteristic of the song thrush and very useful for separating this species from another late winter songster, the mistle thrush. The latter species has a song that is more reminiscent of a blackbird, though harsher in tone with a faster tempo. This is delivered from the upper branches of a tree and is loud and far-carrying. Many authors have commented upon the feeling of sadness that derives from the mistle thrush song. Perhaps this is added to by its habit of singing on bleak, overcast days or during periods of wind and rain, a behaviour that has earned it the local name of ‘stormcock’. Although I admire the mistle thrush for singing, indifferent to the harsh backdrop of a late winter storm, I prefer the optimism offered by the song thrush: “Spring is coming, spring is coming, spring is coming”.

20 pence flight from Norway

There is something special about birdwatching on the east coast during autumn. You get a real sense that vast numbers of birds are on the move, streaming into the country from across the North Sea. This was something that was brought home to me the other day as I walked the lanes around Happisburgh, enjoying the bright, clear weather that carries just enough edge to let you know that summer is truly over. Small groups of blackbirds were passing overhead, together with smaller numbers of redwings and occasional fieldfares. From the hedgerows, more ragged here than elsewhere in the county, came the high-pitched contact calls of diminutive goldcrests, busy searching for insects. Even though goldcrests breed in Britain (there are some 600,000 pairs nationally), these particular individuals were more likely to be migrants, freshly arrived from Scandinavia or western Russia.

As well as being the smallest British bird, the goldcrest has the distinction of being one of the lightest birds anywhere in the world to make regular sea crossings as part of an annual migration. For a bird that weighs roughly the same as a twenty pence piece (about 5.3 grams) such movements are truly remarkable. In some years, bushes and hedgerows at east coast sites may be literally ‘dripping’ with exhausted goldcrests during autumn. These are birds that must operate very close to their physiological limits. Information generated from bird ringing schemes, operating across Europe, has revealed that goldcrests breeding in the northernmost boreal forests are almost completely migratory in their behaviour. Birds from breeding populations situated further south are more likely to remain where they are to overwinter. Some coastal populations on the edge of the Arctic Circle in Norway also remain close to their breeding grounds in winter. By doing so, they have to cope with severe cold and nights that are 18 hours long. It has been calculated that these birds may burn off a fifth of their body weight each night, just to maintain their body temperature at a safe operating level!

This autumn has seen very large numbers of these tiny birds arriving on our shores. Even though the main arrival took place in the second half of October, and was centred on the Yorkshire and Lincolnshire coast, there still appear to be good numbers within East Anglia. Most mornings, while exercising my overly energetic spaniels in Thetford Forest, I encounter goldcrests foraging among the conifers. As if to reinforce the origins of some of these birds, I received a report last week of one individual caught within a mile or so of Thetford which sported a Norwegian ring. One wonders where the individuals I had seen at Happisburgh were from.