Running for my train, I heard a song thrush. It was calling from the wilding birch flourishing in the overgrown sidings at Thirsk Station. When the train doors opened briefly at Northallerton, I heard another thrush singing in the bramble thickets behind the railings. At Yarm Halt too, a song thrush. Edward Thomas’ celebrated poem “Adlestrop” immediately sprang to mind, in which at one unremarkable train stop, the poet seems to be able to hear the birds of two whole counties.