I was surprised by a loud, unfamiliar song, and a large thrush landed in the bush in front of me.  At eye level, I was confronted by the vibrant ghost of Irish winter past right in the middle of a bursting Icelandic spring. A redwing sang and preened in front of me.  I should not have been so surprised, but this is a bird from the Thrush family, that I have only known from the shadowy winter flocks of birds that lurked in the fields around my childhood home.