Two British Migratory Thrushes

Ornithology is much more interesting when seen through the eyes of Helen Macdonald (Pluvialis):

Two species of thrushes visit Britain in winter. The smaller of the two is the redwing, a jaguar-like, shy, and slightly deranged thrush with devilish eyestripes and a burst of dried-blood rouge on each side. Redwings skulk in hedges and disappear with a thin seeeeep alarm call, and they slink about in the periphery of your vision when they first arrive.

But my favourite arctic thrushes are fieldfares. They're big, bold, patterned and arch. Alternatively, they're grey, fierce and wolfish.They are splendid. You have to use the plural, when talking of fieldfares. They arrive in rattling flocks like gusts of spray or hail. They are noisy when they fly, and their chak-chak-chak call is like someone launching a handful of pebbles on an iced-over pond surface. Chack chack chack: echoey, dopplery, cold.