Song Thrushes

I have no idea if I have ever been aware of this before - probably - but each autumn there seems to be a period when Song Thrushes dramatically increase in number before they seem to melt away again. In late winter I become aware of their presence again as they start to sing at dusk and in the early mornings, but for large parts of the year there just aren't any. Or at least not that I see.

From Scilly over 16 years ago!

One morning this week I counted 21 from the Vizmig point, including two flocks of six. Flocks! Normally I see single birds, so I had first assumed they had to be Redwing, but when one or two of the group called I worked it out. I still couldn't quite believe I had seen over 20 before I headed off for work though - amazing. Later on Bob reported that his overnight nocmig recording had 64 Song Thrush calls on it which is extraordinary. 

This has been the pattern for most of the week, albeit not the numbers of Tuesday. I missed all the Ring Ouzels, a minumum of six on the Flats on Monday, but on Wednesday I finally added Fieldfare for the year after a lacklustre approach earlier in the year. They're now around in small numbers, or at least moving through, and there are many more Redwings arriving.

I like this time of year. It's not about rarities, it's just about enjoying the spectacle of migration. I counted over 170 Jackdaw today, and Finches are moving in larger numbers now, mostly Chaffinch or that annoyingly silent Finch sp., but also smaller numbers of Redpoll, Goldfinch, Greenfinch and Linnet. I've missed a few Brambling too, and a Short-eared Owl, but my early start this morning was repaid by a tootling Woodlark over the Flats. Lovely, and all right on my doorstep.

And just like that....

And just like that I stopped writing. I always find it strange how it happens, as if there is magic switch that has been flipped. One I don't have access to. I'm fine, pootling along, working a lot, seeing very few birds. Two exciting things happened since I last stopped by here. 

One, I went to Latvia. You may or may not remember a post from last year about Latvia and how I'd seen no birds there and wanted to put that right. In that post I mentioned I was going to Latvia in April. I didn't, it got cancelled. The airline mucked about with flight times so much that I think it ended up being a four hour trip. So instead I went last weekend. The weather was a bit pants, other than one brief period of sunshire just after I arrived on Saturday afternoon it then turned excessively windy and quite wet which is not ideal for birding. But I still managed to see a fair bit in my quick visit, and have got a bit of a feel for it. A write up will follow in due course, I don't have the capacity just now.

Two, I took a day off work to go and taste wine. I would normally never take time off to go drinking, but this was too good to miss. My name was drawn out of hat to attend The Wine Society's autumn press tasting. As the name suggests this is where their new list for the second half of the year is presented to wine journalists, critics, writers, bloggers, influencers and.....me. I attended not in any of these capacities but as a lucky member of TWS (as it is known). I got to chat to wine buyers and members of the organisation, something that in retrospect I wish I'd done more of, and generally just immerse myself in a side of the wine and spirits business that I would never normally see. And, if I so chose, to taste through 120 different wines. I saw this a challenge.

Spot the famous wine journo...

I taste wine all the time, as in I drink it all the time. I go to wine-themed dinners, I go to small tasting events based around a grape variety or a country, or even a vintage. I have been known to travel to wine regions and visit producers. But this was the first professional tasting I'd been to and I had no idea what to expect. One thing I did know was that I wanted to taste as many as possible, all of them if I could. To see if I could manage it, to see if this is something I enjoyed, to try and see things from a different point of view to how I normally interact with wine.

It does not take a genius to work out that even a tiny sip of 120 wines will get you absolutely sozzled. I spat everything out and walked out stone cold sober - that's what the professionals will do and that's what I did too - an iron will is needed. An iron palate is also needed, it is amazing what swilling so much wine around your mouth does to your taste buds. It destroys them is what it does, or in my case it made me extraordinarily sensitive to sweetness, such that by the end even dry red wines felt ridiculously sweet. But I did manage to taste everything, and I also managed to write notes on every single one that actually made sense the next day when I started typing them up. I won't subject you to them, it ended up being a 5000 word piece, the length of a mini dissertation. 

Overall a very educational day indeed, I have no ideas how the pros do it, it was exhausting. A marathon - four hours means two minutes per wine. Think about that the next time you read something from Jancis in the FT!