The sound of a nagging lamb wakes me from a deep slumber always filled with improbable adventure stories and random characters many of them from family casting some who are still alive but often I am joined by the dead (how comforting to spend time with mum in my dreams).

My sleep disrupter is Luna calling plaintively for the bottle of milk she no longer needs. I give in and stumble downstairs to heat three bottles; one for Luna, one for Radish and the third for Rosemary, knowing that Ginny (Domino’s huge bottle-fed daughter) will hang around her three half-sisters hoping that I will feed her too. No chance but there’s no harm in trying. Some days Poddy (a fully grown ewe who is about 6 years old) will remember her bottle-fed infancy and line up to suck from a bottle thinking that she too is a lamb. I stroke her and tell her not to be so silly.

As I feed the girls, one at a time, the male song thrush belts out his complex notes to guard his territory. Just as I thrill to the calls of “grandma” from any of my grandchildren the notes of the song thrush delight me again and again. I never tire of either sound.

Click below for the song thrush as well as the sound of the common chiff chaff, ring necked dove, wood pigeon, corvids, robin and the background noise of our cockerels.