Song Thrush at Dusk, 4th June 2025

This recording was made at dusk in a rural garden in the village of Holbrook, Suffolk. Whilst sat indoors with the patio doors open, my ears were suddenly attracted to an amazing array of bird sounds coming from the garden. My bird identification skills are poor, and so my first thought was that the calls were coming from one of our resident starlings. A quick check with the Merlin app revealed that in was in fact a song thrush. I can’t remember hearing one in our garden before and, try as I might, I couldn’t locate the bird visually in any tree. The range of pops, whoops, trills and everything in between was stunning (as can be seen in the snippet of the Merlin App's spectrogram that has been used for the recording's image). I hope the bird returns regularly to showcase its skills. The recording also showcases the return of the swifts to Holbrook for another year. They arrived on the 30th April this year - this was eight days earlier than last year. Initially, there were a group of eleven birds screaming around the road, but now only two or occasionally three can be seen and heard. Other birds featured include a robin, rooks, blackbirds, wood pigeon and jackdaws. You can also hear at least one plane flying over, the 9pm chiming of the automated bells at the Royal Hospital School and the constant drone of a temporary swimming pool, recently re-erected in a nearby garden.