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They flew more loosely than the starlings, each bird seeming to row laboriously through the air as if struggling slightly under its own weight. Their tails and wings were longer than those of the starlings, and they were clearly much larger - about the size and shape of a mistle thrush.

But mistle thrushes are quite a scarce bird here on the Somerset Levels, and besides, rarely travel in flocks like these. So I knew even before I lifted my binoculars that they were - members of the thrush family which spend the winter in Britain.

They have come from the north and east - Scandinavia, or perhaps even from Arctic Russia. They travel so far for one simple reason: because if they stayed put on their breeding grounds they would undoubtedly starve to death when the winter comes. So just as our swallows head off to warmer climes, so do these - only ours are the warmer climes they come to.

On Saturday morning, just before dawn, I heard the tell-tale sound of the fieldfare's smaller and more delicate cousin, the - a high-pitched 'seeep' as the bird passed unseen overhead. Later that day I managed to see them too: a small flock of redwings, shaped rather like starlings but with a subtly different 'feel' to their appearance, heading south over my home.

So, I reasoned, autumn is here, and winter can't be far behind. Soon there will be thousands of these delightful thrushes thronging the hedgerows of mine and many other rural parishes in Britain. If we get a winter like last one, they'll even head into gardens in search of food. Last winter, during that freezing cold spell in January, this website and the were inundated with reports of 'strange birds' in gardens - some people even identified fieldfares as cuckoos, which isn't as silly as it sounds, as both are large, grey and with a hefty bill!

Autumn may be here, but on Saturday, just after I saw the redwings, summer had its very last fling. Half a dozen swallows, surely the tail-end of the migration south, passed over my garden, heading in a south-easterly direction towards mainland Europe. As I waved them goodbye, I felt both a pang of regret at their absence for the next few months, and a sense of excitement at the coming of autumn - one of my very favourite seasons for watching birds.

Have you seen any redwings and fieldfares yet? If so do let us know!

Stephen Moss is a series producer at the Ö÷²¥´óÐã Natural History Unit and author, with a special interest in British wildlife. His latest series, Birds Britannia, will be shown on Ö÷²¥´óÐã Four from Wednesday 3 November.