Thrush

I have not seen a thrush in our garden for about eight years; today I saw one, a rather large, stout one that stood on the top of a hedge for some twenty seconds. He (or she) looked as if it was studying something, it had an almost serious expression on its face. Heaps of speckles on its chest.
There used to be heaps of them in our garden eight or so years ago. They ate all the red currants which I couldn't bother to cover - anyway they probably enjoyed them more than I would have because I never knew what to with red currants except make jam out of them and that's a tedious job which, in my case, always resulted in disaster - too soft, too hard, too something.
Then, suddenly, the next season there were none. But there were, and are, plenty of magpies. If they don't eat chicks they certainly eat eggs; so they probably ate all the young thrushes and none came back. Until now.
Welcome wise thrush which sings his song twice over..... Hah yes:

"Hark! where my blossomed pear-tree in the hedge
Leans to the field and scatters on the clover
Blossoms and dewdrops - at the bent spray's edge -
That's the wise thrush; he sings each song twice over,
Lest you should think he never would recapture
The first, fine careless rapture!"