As the old year blew itself out in a succession of gales, it summoned up a “storm cock” to sit in the earth’s rafters and sing. Living up to that old country name, the mistle thrush cast down fluty one-liners from the wind-battered treetops, dispensing a mellifluous answer to the tone-deaf huff and puff.
Within the thrush outside my window, there are two voices and one obsession. At first light, it pierced the glass with its high, clear, far-carrying notes, which might easily have drifted over from the line of limes 200 metres away. But no, settled into the top boughs of the nearest and tallest lime was that creamy front, potato‑printed with dark irregular spots. Slender, curved mandibles gaped wide, matching the singer to the song.
For more than a quarter of a century, there has been a thrush visiting this exact spot, always appearing shortly before Christmas, always gone by the beginning of February. Through a dozen thrush generations the place has become a bigger attraction, a longer draw, each bird benefiting its successors. A dozen clumps of mistletoe two decades ago have become more than 70 today, spread through nine trees. The thrushes have acted as gardeners, either wiping seeds off on a twig, having gorged on the flesh, or depositing them in compost-packed poo. The scientific name Turdus viscivorus, meaning mistletoe-eating thrush, hints strongly at the bird’s all-consuming appetite for those berries.
It wants them all, guarding its winter bounty against all comers, though not always successfully. A woodpigeon, a bird never averse to picking unripe fruit, flumps down into the lime, cocks its neck and begins to pluck berries from over its shoulder. The thrush, a few rungs higher, has no time now for honeyed prose. It fires off a long, ugly, and insistent rattling call, a “get off of my crop” warning if ever there was one. The perching pigeon, three or four times its weight, is unmoved. It just keeps eating.
• Country diary is on Twitter at @gdncountrydiary
