Though we’re marooned on lockdown, the birds are on the move. This morning, breakfast mug of tea in hand, I stood on the backdoor step, listening to a loud chuckling, rising from the cowfield ash tree. A flock of fieldfares had gathered in the still leafless branches. Each autumn, up to three quarters of a million of these members of the thrush family arrive in Britain, and spend the following months wayfaring through the countryside, feeding on worms. In April, they make their way back to their breeding grounds in Scandinavia and Russia. This little flock, with its fieldfare gurgling sound, was on its way back home.
23 April 2020, The Tablet
Glimpses of Eden
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