From Otter Bank following fieldfare

Sunrise with jackdaws

Stepping out of the car at Otter Bank, I heard fieldfare.  For me, the first of the season and always a thrill.  
We headed for Whinfell Tarn and Black Moss Tarn and we heard and saw mixed flocks of starling and fieldfare along the route.  Abundant hawthorn berries were the attraction.  A flock of starling is a noisy, chattering affair and you had to be alert to catch the call of fieldfare amongst them.  The morning grew brighter so sunlight caught the more colourful fieldfare as they flew.

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At noon, we stopped for lunch in a pasture by Kit Crag.   A stone wall enclosed hawthorn bushes laden with fruit and a large tree grew in the corner of the field.  A singing tree alive with birds.  Behind it, rose the crag.  The flock gathered in the top of the tree, like dark clots of autumn leaves amongst its fretwork of branches.   Keeping close to the mossy wall, I crept close until I stood beneath the tree.  Flights of birds swept down into the hawthorns to feed, then back into the safety of the canopy.  Listening closely, I could hear the calls of fieldfare-  less clamorous than the starlings.  They must have been aware of my presence but, unusually for fieldfare, they were unafraid and did not fly off.   Perhaps being in a large mixed flock gives a sense of security.  Most of the birds gathered in the furthest branches, keeping some distance.
Having found few birds on Scout Scar last week, and no winter thrush, this was gratifying.  I saw and heard more fieldfare on today's walk than through the whole of last winter.  
Nigel had seen twenty redwing at Kirkby Lonsdale on Monday. 

This week I heard of an art installation to replicate the dawn chorus. We're losing species so presumably the idea is to substitute a recording.  We shared our dismay at the concept as we listened to the singing tree, alive with birds.  
The thrill is to find things for oneself.  To look and listen, to discover how birds use their habitat and how they behave.  Some of my companions had never seen fieldfare and when I rejoined them they were interested to know that they are autumn migrants from Scandinavia.  Their coming is triggered by the search for food, for the berries they feed on.  The weather influences their journey.  A spell of cold weather and a helpful wind direction might bring them in. And they stay only whilst the food supply lasts. Then they're off in search of more.   Fieldfare are thrush,  a beautiful and rather colourful thrush. It's puzzling that several of my companions go on long-haul flights, on safari in search of exotic animals.  But showed little interest in this sunlit singing tree and its wildlife.  
I had only a smartphone with which to take photographs today.  So the birds in the singing tree are only just perceptible in the image.   My video is more lively.  The experience was memorable.   Forget art installations, give me wildlife.   Wild and alive.