Let’s hear it for a sweet singing bird

That’s the wise thrush, he sings each song twice over;

Lest you should think he never could recapture, The first fine careless rapture

THE climate has gone mad. Plants are growing out of season, bumblebees are on the wing, pigeons and blackbirds are said to be nesting. Venture forth early on clear calm mornings and you may hear a fine dawn chorus. The robin is the great winter singer but the dominant early morning vocalist is the song thrush. The bird of Home Thoughts, from Abroad sang ‘now that April’s there’, but song thrushes will perform in any season if spring-like weather arrives. The song is unmistakeable; its short phrases, as Robert Browning noted, are always repeated.