06 Monday Mar 2023
Posted in birds
It’s now been over a week since I’ve seen any of the dazzling thrushes that brighten the local trees and fields during the darkest months of winter so I assume they are on their way back to their breeding rounds in Scandinavia. Farewell, and safe journey, to all the beautiful Redwings and Fieldfares. I’m already looking forward to seeing you again later in the year.
22 Saturday Oct 2022
Tags
autumn migration, bird migration, birding, birdwatching, British birds, Fieldfare, Redwing, winter thrushes
The strong easterlies of the last three days, 19th to 21st inclusive, have seen a huge influx of winter thrushes arriving in Britain. The BTO’s Birdtrack blog reports that the reason for such a large arrival is undoubtedly to do with the weather but is also linked ‘to the almost total failure of rowan berries across Scandinavia, where large flocks have already been recorded further west and south than is usual for the time of year’.
Although that blog only mentions the arrivals on England’s east coast, we’ve also seen huge numbers streaming through here in south Wales. Though these thrushes are mostly nocturnal migrants, they often continue their flights for the first few morning hours, before finding somewhere to feed and roost for the rest of the day. During my local walks, particularly in the coastal fields and at Cosmeston, I’ve seen flocks of 50-100 birds constantly passing overhead.
The birds have been a mix of Redwings and Fieldfares but, yesterday, the majority were Fieldfare. Though they were all quite flighty – and a hunting Sparrowhawk kept unsettling the flocks, it was simply amazing to see so many of these beautiful birds. I hope to share better photos of both Fieldfares and Redwings in the coming months.
13 Saturday Feb 2021
Tags
First, they were berry-eaters, stripping trees and shrubs of every luscious fruit. Now, they are frantic leaf-turners, wanna-be worm-pluckers, competing with the Song thrushes and Blackbirds for every tasty wriggler. Soon, the Redwings will be gone, flying back to their breeding grounds to produce next year’s berry-eaters and worm-pluckers. I will miss them; the worms probably not so much.
17 Thursday Dec 2020
When winter begins to tighten its deadly grip on the world’s northernmost latitudes, food gets scarce and many birds either flee south or face starvation.
Fieldfares come chack-chack-chacking all the way across the North Sea from Scandinavia, some even further, from the desolate snowbound plains of Siberia.
Some Redwings also fly across the North Sea, though most of those we see in Britain have come south from Iceland. Seeing and hearing these gorgeous birds is one of winter’s highlights for me.
11 Tuesday Feb 2020
Today’s walk around some of central Cardiff’s lovely parks was peppered with light hail showers but that worked in my favour because it meant there weren’t many other people out walking and so the birds weren’t as disturbed as they might have been. And that meant I was able to get quite close to some of the large flocks of Redwings that were grazing on the grassy meadows and playing fields. What handsome birds these winter visitors are, with their distinctive pale face stripes, their rusty flanks and their ‘tseep tseep’ calls.
02 Monday Dec 2019
Tags
autumn berries, birding, birds eating berries, birdwatching, blackbird, British birds, Fieldfare, Mistle thrush, Redwing, Song thrush, winter thrushes, Woodpigeon
It’s only been a few weeks since I saw my first winter thrushes of the season but now they’re everywhere, feasting on autumn’s bounty of lush, delicious berries. Song and Mistle thrushes, Blackbirds, Redwings and Fieldfares and, not a thrush, the Woodpigeons are also indulging in the berry-fest. The Redwings are particularly skittish but I’ve managed to sneak up on a few to grab photos, though, more often than not, the whole tree I’m trying to approach will suddenly erupt with birds flying off in all directions. And then I feel a little guilty about interrupting their repast.
01 Friday Feb 2019
Posted in 365DaysWildin2019, birds, nature, winter
With its wide diversity of trees young and old, Victoria Square is home to a good number of birds. Today I spotted Blue and Great tits, Nuthatches, a Treecreeper and two Goldcrests, Crows and Jackdaws, Blackbirds and Song thrushes, a Greenfinch calling from a tree top, and several of these beautiful Redwings energetically turning leaves in the never-ending search for food. I sprinkled some seed about in the less snowy places close to trees and left them to it.
08 Thursday Mar 2018
Tags
#StormEmma, #TheBeastfromtheEast, birding, birdwatching, British birds, cold weather effect on birds, Fieldfare, Green woodpecker, Redwing, Song thrush, thrushes
Nature’s cold weather events may be lovely to look at – and I freely admit that, as a Kiwi unused to snow, I absolutely loved the heavy snow we had last week as a result of ‘The Beast from the East’ and Storm Emma – but such events come at a high cost, particularly to wildlife. The extreme cold and gale-force easterlies blew across from Europe thousands of Fieldfares and Redwings, and displaced a myriad of other birds: Golden plovers and Lapwing, Woodcocks and Snipe were all reported in parklands and farmers’ fields, all desperately looking for food.
I’d not seen many Fieldfares before this storm hit but a walk around local parks and Cardiff Bay on Sunday and Monday gave me the opportunity to see large numbers of them and Redwings.
In Penarth Marina Park, I spotted five of Britain’s six thrush species grazing (Song thrush, Mistle thrush, Blackbird, Redwing and Fieldfare) (accompanied by a Green woodpecker), and in trees alongside the River Taff, I got my closest views yet of Fieldfare – such beautiful markings.
Let’s hope they now have the strength to head back to where they came from and that the cold blast won’t have any long-term effects on their populations.
04 Sunday Mar 2018
Tags
birding, birdwatching, British birds, Buzzard, chaffinch, Cosmeston, Cosmeston Lakes Country Park, Great tit, Lesser redpolls, Malard, nuthatch, Redpoll, Redwing, Reed bunting, treecreeper, Tufted duck
2 February A stride was required so I passed through Cosmeston as part of a longer walk. I did, as always, keep an eye out for unusual birds, though the only bird that fitted that category was a Buzzard in a tree by the dipping pond, exactly where a friend had reported it the previous day.
I scattered some seed around for my small and hungry feathered friends, and I did linger a while by the lake to take some photos of gulls. (I’m attempting to learn to recognise gulls of different ages but I’ll post separately about that when I’ve got more photos and information.)
4 February There are various routes I can take when I walk to Cosmeston; on this day I approached from the north, which produced a couple of Bullfinches near Old Cogan Farm and, further down Mile Road, a couple of Redwing feasting on ivy berries.
To escape the Sunday crowds, I headed off piste and almost immediately spotted a Green woodpecker and, seeing it fly to the ground, started stalking it. It flew off but then a mixed flock of tits and finches flew in, amongst which, to my very great delight, were 3 Lesser redpolls, a bird I’ve only seen once before and which is not often seen in these parts. They were feeding in an alder tree, moving often, doing acrobatics while suspended from cones, flitting from branch to branch, all of which made them difficult to photograph. But what a delightful 30 minutes I spent watching their antics.
9 February I was hoping to spot the Redpolls again today but lucked out, though I did spot a flock of perhaps 8 Redwings in the trees nearby. A handsome male Reed bunting was enjoying the seed a kind passerby had left on a fence post by the west lake, and it wasn’t just me who was finding the winds strong and gusty – this Tufted duck was having a bad hair day.
21 February This was school half-term holiday week in Wales, not a particularly pleasant time to visit a country park to enjoy the delights of nature as the parks are usually full of screaming children and frazzled parents at such times. I managed to avoid most of that by taking the paths less travelled but still found much of the wildlife was being scared away by the noise.
Still, I thought I’d make a list of what I did see: Great tit, Blackbird, Dunnock, Robin, Magpie, Goldfinch, Redwing, Carrion crow, Jay, Wren, Blue tit, Buzzard, Jackdaw, Long-tailed tit, Woodpigeon, Mistle thrush, Chaffinch, House sparrow, Starling, Green woodpecker, Reed bunting, Nuthatch, Coal tit, Coot, Cormorant, Mute swan, Black-headed gull, Lesser black-backed gull, Herring gull, Mallard, Tufted duck, Great crested grebe, Canada goose, Greylag goose and Pochard – not a bad list, with 35 bird species, and just one mammal, the ubiquitous Grey squirrel.
28 February South Wales was feeling the brunt of the ‘Beast from the East’, a freezing weather bomb from Siberia, when I paid my last February visit to Cosmeston so it was a short visit, partly for the exercise and I also bought a couple of bags of seed from the Rangers’ Office to feed the birds. You know they’re finding foraging tough when you see a Treecreeper come to the bird feeder – most unusual! And it was also unusual to have the sparse remnants of the previous day’s snow on the ground, so I had to get a few photos of birds (Chaffinch and Mallard) in snow as well. Let’s hope spring (re)appears soon.
09 Thursday Nov 2017
Tags
berries and birds, berry eating birds, birding, birdwatching, Mistle thrush, Redwing, Song thrush, thrush, Turdus iliacus, Turdus philomelos, Turdus viscivorus
Officially, in Britain, the resident true thrushes are the Ring ouzel, Fieldfare, Blackbird, Song thrush, Mistle thrush and Redwing, while other thrush species are occasional, sometimes rare visitors.
The thrushes I’ve been noticing most in recent weeks have been the Song thrush, Mistle thrush and Redwing, partly due to their seasonal migration southwards to our ever so slightly milder south Wales climate and partly due to this being prime berry-eating time.
Song thrushes (Turdus philomelos) are resident here all year round, though there is some movement through Britain from Scandinavian birds heading south for the winter.
It can sometimes be difficult to distinguish Song from Mistle thrushes (Turdus viscivorus), though the Mistles have a tendency to perch high in the tree tops (or, I discovered, on TV aerials, in urban areas!) and to stand with heads held high when foraging on the ground, and their football-rattle song is unmistakeable. I saw my first Mistle thrushes of the season on 9 October and there are now quite large numbers in local parks and reserves.
Redwings (Turdus iliacus) were reported locally in early October but it was the 30th before I caught up with a small flock at Cathays Cemetery in Cardiff, and I’ve since spent several hours following them around the berry trees at Cosmeston, trying to get close enough for photos. They’re easily spooked though so my shots so far have not been that great – I’ll keep trying, and I’ll need to try to find Ring ouzels and Fieldfare as well.
earthstar 
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