It was still dark when I was woken. The song thrush, perched on the TV aerial, his favourite singing post, was belting out that celebrated, full-throated song. The poet Robert Browning wrote that the thrush sings each song twice over, in case the human listener missed “that first careless rapture”, but research shows that he repeats his sweet phrases three and four times. And with a hundred different phrases to choose from, there’s plenty of variety too.