Sing on sweet thrush, upon the leafless bough,

Sing on sweet bird,  listen to thy strain,

And aged winter, mid his early reign,

At thy blythe carol, clears his furrowed brow.’

Robert Burns

 

The other day (Feb 1st ) I was sitting indoors when I heard a sound for which I am always waiting at this time of year. Opening the window, there it was, loud and clear, crisp and melodious—unmistakably the first Song Thrush—right on cue, singing its heart out claiming a territory for itself.  It’s my favourite songbird, especially because it is the first bird to sing. It gives us so much pleasure by its beautiful solo performance – a herald of the dawn chorus to come, causing ‘aged winter to clear his furrowed brow’.

The Thrush is all the more welcome because it loves to sing alone, when other birds are mostly silent—usually in the early morning, or after dusk, when its clear voice echoes unchallenged across the local gardens loud and clear. (sometimes it may be accompanied by a late robin singing in the light of the street lamps.)

‘…… At once a voice arose among

      The bleak twigs overhead

In a full-hearted evensong

      Of joy illimited;

An aged thrush, frail, gaunt, and small,

      In blast-beruffled plume,

Had chosen thus to fling his soul

      Upon the growing gloom.

So little cause for carolings

      Of such ecstatic sound

Was written on terrestrial things

      Afar or nigh around,

That I could think there trembled through

      His happy good-night air

Some blessed Hope, whereof he knew

      And I was unaware.’

 

From ‘The Darkling Thrush’    by Thomas Hardy

I remember one occasion when we were in the local Highdown Gardens in May, four of us visitors stood spellbound under a cherry tree in which a thrush was singing its heart out  in full flowing melody. None of us moved for several minutes, captured, in Robert Browning’s words, by the glorious ‘fine careless rapture’.

The Red List of Endangered Species

Sadly, these lovely song birds have been disappearing fast in this country in recent years. Along with 67 other bird species they are on the Red List of endangered species.

However, it was a delight to discover, when we moved to live in Sussex, that these birds are still very much alive and thriving along the South Coast. Later in Spring we sometimes hear the sound of  a local thrush  smashing open snail shells on our brick paths. (No poisonous metaldehyde slug pellets here please!) Then in the early evening we are serenaded by his beautiful, melodious ‘evensong’.

I do agree with others that conservation is not only about reintroducing a few pairs of Ospreys to a nature reserve in the far North of Scotland. Rather, it is also about ordinary people, walking their dogs in the local park, being able to hear a Song Thrush singing in the trees. Sadly that is becoming an increasingly rare occurrence today, in some parts.

Silent Spring

Some time ago I read Rachel Carson’s famous book ‘The Silent Spring’, published in 1962.  She describes how the introduction of large scale indiscriminate spraying with chemicals like DDT was causing havoc to wildlife in the late 1950’s and early 60’s., and also endangering human health. Her courageous  voice was raised to confront the powerful chemical industry in the USA. In the year following publication of her ground- breaking book, she was called to give testimony before a Senate committee commissioned by President J.F. Kennedy to investigate the issue. Sadly it was only 7 years later, after Rachel’s  death, that DDT was banned in the USA. However, shockingly, its indiscriminate use has continued in China until 2007 and India until  2009!

After reading the book Aldous Huxley apparently commented that, with the loss of woodlands, hedgerows, birds and butterflies, we have lost half the subject matter of our traditional English poetry !

Playing our Part

What can we as individuals do about it ? We can turn our gardens into a more wildlife-friendly area, and support the conservation work of bodies like the RSPB. We must also encourage more environmentally-friendly farming, more likely to provide nesting sites for endangered species like the thrush, by leaving wider field margins and properly maintaining the hedgerows where birds like the thrush have traditionally nested.

— Sing on sweet birds. We love to hear you.