9 - laulurastas

This is a laulurastas or song thrush, commonplace both here in the UK and in Finland, where there are around 900,000 pairs according to my lintuopas/Finnish bird book. It looks like but is a smaller bird than the mistle thrush (kulorastas). And their song differs, even to my ignorant ears.

This is quite a bit after the fact: I took this picture back in May, on a visit to East coast Scotland. Sadly, I don't normally see or hear song thrushes around my house (nor blackbirds or anything like that), but I'm sure they're around, not too far away. But it's almost the only usable photo I've ever taken of a small bird - they tend to fly away, and if you only sport a compact camera, your career as a bird photographer is unpromising. I think it helped being out in the wilds, hence the birds not being quite so touchy about humans. The pictures I've provided in these 'bird reports' have been pretty rubbish up till now, so I didn't want to let this go unremarked.

Anyway, there are other reasons why I'm posting now. The main one is that my mate Ian up in Scotland is an avid birdwatcher (he has an impressive record of sightings, here and abroad), and he quickly persuaded me that owning a pair of binoculars would massively boost my enjoyment of birdwatching. Yesterday, in Manchester, I wandered past one of the few remaining proper camera shops, and on a whim I went in and bought a pair. Nothing fancy or expensive, just a basic 8 x 30. I think this'll do me, for the sort of walking I do. I didn't want a heavy pair which would annoy me hanging down from my neck. The guy in the shop handed me a few others to try out, and while the 10 x bins and the better quality brands were a little better, they weren't so much better that I felt I needed them. We'll see!

There's another reason, probably the one which made me alert to the idea of a purchase yesterday. I've nearly finished reading Simon Barnes' excellent How to be a Bad Birdwatcher. A pleasure to read and an undeniable call to lift your life by paying attention to birds. That's it, really. He professes not to be into the stats scoring of the twitchers; when you read about how he's taken advantage of his job as a journalist, it's obvious that he's delighted in spotting species all over the world, but to be fair he's convincing in extolling the virtues and pleasures of simply looking and admiring, more than anything in delighting in the diversity of birds.

One very important aspect of birdwatching is birdsong. I confess I'm entirely uneducated in this area - I mean, I'd have a general idea I might be listening to a crow or seagull or pigeon/dove etc. But Simon Barnes' book has persuaded me I should try to learn some particulars. It's not going well so far. This morning, I went on to YouTube to sample some song thrush sounds, and of course found out why they were given that name. It seems impossibly varied. However, I then went to listen to examples of blackbird song, and while it's too early to say I recognise the song, I could tell that it had a different character to the song thrush's song. I'll do more exploring.

On that trip to NE Scotland, I managed to see many birds unfamiliar to me. Ian's particular location near the coast but also not far from the mountains means he's blessed with great birdwatching locations. And being active in birdwatching there, he was able to take me to several hides in different reserves. To be honest, I've already forgotten some of my new species sightings, but I had some wonderful moments simply watching yellowhammers (keltasirkku) close up, and my first sighting of a harrier, uh now was it a marsh harrier or hen harrier? And, very special to me, my first ever visual sighting of an osprey. A little distant, but so distinctive. Oh, you're still scoffing at "visual sighting"?? Yes, I know that sounds nonsense, but my mind goes back to that time in Maine, on the shore, in dense fog, being mobbed by an osprey I never saw.

There we go. I fully expect that it won't be long before I go on another countryside ramble, this time equipped with my spanking new binoculars, ready to get a good look at the next song thrush I encounter.