Birds survive on a wing and a prayer

IN Galway recently, I looked out the window of a seafront apartment one morning and saw five glossy blackbirds perched on a leafless shrub.

I was struck by how shiny they were, and how slim. Another blackbird was perched on a neighbouring bush, but it was noticeably plumper and less aerodynamic. I surmised that the five were migrants that had arrived on the high winds the night before and were busily searching for a holly bush, rowan or hawthorn that would supply breakfast. They left as a flock. They didn’t stay long.

Thousands of blackbirds migrate into Ireland from western, central and northern Europe each winter. Last January, when the half-starved redwing and fieldfare thrushes arrived from Scandinavia and Russia to find Britain and then Ireland covered in snow – and died in their thousands, as a result – there were blackbirds amongst them. In our yard, feeding along with the 50 or 60 thrushes on the bread we scattered, there might have been as many as 20 blackbirds at a time.