10 November 2007
Winter Visitors
Posted by Richard under: Wildlife .
As I do on most Saturday mornings, I started the day with a walk around the fields checking the hedges and counting the sheep. The stormy weather had improved slightly and although the wind was still pretty brisk it wasn’t too cold.
The storms had brought one change though. As I stood in the bottom field for five minutes, I counted two to three hundred Fieldfare and perhaps slightly less Redwing flying overhead.
These members of the thrush family spend their summers breeding in the forests of Scandinavia and Siberia - and arrive in Britain when the weather turns. Their arrival is a sure sign that winter is not far behind.
Fieldfares are impressively large thrushes, with a grey head - but you usually hear their loud chak-chak calls overhead and notice their bright white ‘armpits’ as they fly.
Redwings are smaller, smaller than a song thrush, but with a clear pale eyestripe - but in flight it is their clear thin whistling call and red ‘armpits’ that you notice.
4 Comments so far...
Lucy Says:
10 November 2007 at 10:29 pm.
Fieldfares are not very common around here, but I have seen the Redwings visiting for the four or years or so. Ours usually come much later on - nearer Christmas and New year, and will arrive and come to feed in groups of at least 4. I feed the birds all year round but have to put a hell of a lot more down in the winter, for obvious reasons. This year I’m trying to introduce more natural food sources - we already have the pyracantha bushes (firebush) that the blackbirds gorge on, a few hawthorns too, but I want to try and find ways to feed the seed eating finches too. They feasted on my ‘accidental’ sunflowers this year, so I was thinking perhaps growing a ‘gallery’ of bigger sunflowers next year.
Richard Says:
11 November 2007 at 10:12 am.
Fieldfares are a real farmland bird - although they do gather in large parks if the weather is really cold.
The trick to see lots of Fieldfares and Redwing is to keep looking up and listening - Redwing often migrate at night, so you can hear their thin whistling call as they pass over head even if you can’t see them.
Apart from putting actual birdseed out, then leaving sunflowers or large ornamental thistles/teasels seedheads to overwinter is a great way to feed finches. Goldfinches love thistle seed - they look like little clowns and sound like a pocket of loose change jangling away.
farmingfriends Says:
11 November 2007 at 8:52 pm.
I will look out for fieldfares and redwings in our fields. What an interesting post. Sara from farmingfriends
Lucy Says:
12 November 2007 at 10:35 pm.
We had a few fieldfares a couple of winters ago - the smallest smallholding (the large part) has a large open area that attracts ground feeders, so I guess that’s why we were lucky enough to attract the fieldfares. I became a really enthusiastic bird watcher and love British wild birds. We mostly get house sparrows, collared doves, woodpigeons, greenfinches, goldfinches, chaffinches, blackbirds, wrens, saw a goldcrest at close range once (beautiful!), an annual pied wagtail, starlings, blue tits, great tits, coal tits… so nothing spectacularly out of the ordinary but all very stunning in their own ways. Sadly we don’t see too many sparrows, never seen a song thrush either. I’m hoping that as I develop my planting scheme (will def. include teasels), I’ll attract even more species of wild bird. Would love to put a wildlife pond in too.