Country diary: The redwings have arrived – but why are they so skittish? | Mark Cocker

Monsal Dale, Derbyshire: Of the five common thrushes that call Britain home, these are the most unpredictable and least approachableIt was that dusk moment when the brown-green of the fields merged with the green-brown of the trees and Great Shacklow Wood ran a chromatic scale down its steep slope into gathering, unresolved darkness by the river; and over everything was palest ice-blue.It was then that the redwings went to roost – a dozen silhouettes twisting and appearing almost to fall s