Day of the thrushes as sun shines

IT is difficult for the self-employed to stay indoors these days when the sky is blue and the world outside bathed in sunlight, and there is – even! – warmth in sheltered corners so that one could close one’s eyes and think one is on the Mediterranean.

Thank goodness I am not. It has been raining buckets down there; for weeks on end we have had the best weather in Europe, I believe.

One day last week, walking above the sea at the Seven Heads in west Cork, I saw together, in a single, small field, all but one of the six species of thrushes that spend all or part of the year in Ireland. The field was very green, the sea below it very blue and the thrushes were very bright in the warm, winter sun.