Lovely birds, the thrushes in all their forms: the song thrush, the mistle thrush, the fieldfare and the redwing. The blackbird is of the same family. There are striking photographs, too, of them all in the French magazine La Chasse, which says firmly that without any doubt the members of this family are the game most hunted (i.e. shot) in France. At the same time it turns out that, apart from France, Spain and Italy, the species is very little hunted elsewhere in Europe. The peak time for the hunter is, of course, in autumn and early winter, when flocks migrate south from Scandinavia, Russia and other northern areas to Britain, Ireland, France, Spain, etc., not forgetting that there are healthy local populations on the ground already. One man in the Armagnac area of France is so devoted to the birds that he has given over six hectares of his land to hedges and shrubs that carry berries in autumn: hawthorn, rowan, pyracantha, cotoneaster and others. He loves the birds and he hunts and eats them. But in general the French hunter, sportingly, won't shoot them when they are perched on the bare autumnal trees or on the ground, but blazes away at them only in flight. That's the theory. "And you need a dog," explains one, "because a wounded or killed bird may be very hard to find on the ground at dusk or in the half-light of early morning". This edition of the magazine brings a gift with it. Stuck to the front cover is a small disc-like object with a hole in the centre. It is a whistle almost guaranteed to attract the birds. If you blow into it, a whole flock may veer down towards the ground and settle - whatever quality its whistling contains. This is widely used along the French coast of the Landes. And, says Claude Bougue, the man of the berried bushes: "They are delicious game, especially when they have been feeding on apples. That fattens them up a bit. Fit for a king!" Some hunters say that after feeding for a few days among the vines, the birds get a little tipsy and unsteady in flight. Does one not say "Saoul comme une grive?" - drunk as a thrush? How to prepare a thrush for eating? Again the magazine gives a recipe: roasted, braised at the edge of the fire, wrapped in a slice of bacon, and at the end given a dash of the local magic (Armagnac) poured over it to bring out the full flavour.