Tag Archive | song thrush

Snow birds

Mar20

In the two recent periods of snowy weather (The Beast from the East, over 1, 2 and 3 March) and the Mini Beast from the East (from 18 March onwards – no more snow falling but it is still heavy on the ground), we’ve been putting even more food down for the wild birds. We’ve been rewarded by some great views of birds we rarely see in the garden – and three species that are new to us.

The first new species might not seem that exciting, as they are all around us in the village, nesting in rookeries in the tall beech trees, but we have never had rooks (Corvus frugilegus) actually come down into our garden before.

Rook (Corvus frugilegus). Photo by Rafał Komorowski (Wikimedia Commons).

Rook (Corvus frugilegus). Photo by Axel Mauruszat (Wikimedia Commons).

The second new bird was a very exciting sighting, and he’s been back several times: a male hawfinch (Coccothraustes coccothraustes). This is the biggest finch in the UK, and we’ve never seen one before, anywhere, so to see one in our garden was wonderful. And he’s bloody massive. I tried to get a photo of him next to a chaffinch, the finch it most resembles, but sadly failed to get a decent shot.

Male hawfinch (Coccothraustes coccothraustes). Photo by Mikils (Wikimedia Commons).

Male hawfinch (Coccothraustes coccothraustes).

Top to bottom: Starling, blackbird, hawfinch.

The third new bird is a male reed bunting (Emberiza schoeniclus). This little bird looks superficially like a male house sparrow, but has a distinctive black head, bright white collar and a black streak like a tie down its chest. Its body plumage is a little streaky in appearance, reminiscent of a siskin’s or a dunnock’s.

Male reed bunting (Emberiza schoeniclus). Photo by Andreas Trepte (Wikimedia Commons).

We’ve also had quite a few fieldfare (Turdus pilaris) and redwing (Turdus iliacus) visit during the snowy periods. We only see these winter visitors occasionally.

Turdus overload: top to bottom Fieldfare, Song thrush, Redwing, Blackbird.

Bird species seen in our garden during the snowy spells of March 2018:

Blackbird  (Turdus merula)

Song thrush  (Turdus philomelos)

Fieldfare  (Turdus pilaris)

Redwing  (Turdus iliacus)

Robin  (Erithacus rubecula)

Long-tailed tit  (Aegithalos caudatus)

Blue tit  (Cyanistes caeruleus)

Great tit  (Parus major)

Chaffinch  (Fringilla coelebs)

Goldfinch  (Carduelis carduelis)

Greenfinch  (Chloris chloris)

Hawfinch   (Coccothraustes coccothraustes)

Siskin  (Spinus spinus)

Reed bunting  (Emberiza schoeniclus)

Dunnock (Hedge sparrow)  (Prunella modularis)

House sparrow  (Passer domesticus)

Starling  (Sturnus vulgaris)

Pied wagtail  (Motacilla alba yarrellii)

Wood pigeon  (Columba palumbus)

Collared dove  (Streptopelia decaocto)

Jackdaw  (Coloeus monedula)

Rook  (Corvus frugilegus)

Round and round the apple tree … redux

Nov29

Last night was very cold, and we woke to a heavy frost, the fiercest yet this winter. In the secret garden next door we were treated to the lovely sight of our first fieldfare (Turdus pilaris) of the winter, a new arrival from Scandinavia or points further east. He was flying between the tall beeches that surround the garden and the central, old apple tree, with its spread of windfall apples on the ground beneath, chasing off any blackbirds (Turdus merula) that got too close to his stash.

Fieldfare (Turdus pilaris). Photo by Bengt Nyman.

Fieldfare (Turdus pilaris). Photo by Bengt Nyman.

Now this might be a bit of a stretch, and I have no idea of the longevity of fieldfare, but I wonder if this is the same bird that stayed in the secret garden for well over a month during the winter two years ago. Fieldfare normally travel in flocks, so seeing a singleton is unusual enough. The fact that this one is displaying the same territorial behaviour towards the secret garden makes me wonder ….

The secret garden, surrounded by tall beech trees and with its old apple tree in the centre. The fieldfare was in one the beeches when I took this, not that you'll be able to spot it.

The secret garden, surrounded by tall beech trees and with its old apple tree in the centre. The fieldfare was in one the beeches when I took this, not that you’ll be able to spot it.

Our visitor two years ago finally left us when our neighbours on the other side of the secret garden started having lots of treework done, involving noisy chainsaws. The day that started, he left. We didn’t see him last year. It’s lovely to have him (or one like him) back.

And as a double bonus, this morning I heard the first song thrush (Turdus philomelos) singing. They sing through the spring and early summer, and then stop, starting up again in winter. It’s wonderful to hear.

Update: 24 January 2017: We have had several days of very hard frosts and sub-zero temperatures at night. Two days ago our lone fieldfare was joined by four others, and the blackbirds were down feeding on the apples too. It seems the greater number meant that the original fieldfare gave up on chasing everyone else off. Yesterday we counted ten fieldfare. We have been supplementing the apples with oatmeal, suet, sultanas, sunflower seeds, chopped up dates and figs: I think the birds eat better than we do!

Update 27 January 2017: The apples are now gone, and so too are the fieldfare: we started putting out extra apples just too late to keep them around (they didn’t eat any of the other offerings). Oh well. It was lovely having our loner and latterly his friends for as long as we did.

The song thrush sings again

Nov12

One of the joys of the yearly round is hearing the song thrush (Turdus philomelos) resume its gorgeous song in late autumn.

Song thrush (Turdus philomelos).

Song thrush (Turdus philomelos). Photo by Pavrabec.

Thrushes sing gloriously throughout the summer until about July. And then they stop. I have never noticed the exact date when they stop singing. It’s always easier to notice when something starts – the first swallows appear, or the first brimstones, or the first crickets chirr – but it’s always harder to pin down when something ceases. Usually, it’s a case of thinking, ‘Hmm, I don’t remember hearing the thrush for a few days.’ And then you realise it’s stopped singing. I don’t know enough about the life cycle of the thrush to know why this cessation of song should be, but I imagine it’s something to do with singing for a mate and establishing and maintaining territory. Once the breeding season is over I guess this becomes unnecessary. And so the song stops.

But hurrah! Yesterday, Remembrance Day, as I was walking up to the post office in the afternoon, I heard the song for the first time. Like an old friend I’d missed, it was lovely to be reacquainted, and it lifted my heart, as it always does.

Song thrushes

Nov19

The song thrush (Turdus philomelos) is one of my favourite songbirds. The song of the male is so beautiful. Song thrushes live in the UK year-round, and one of the special seasonal markers for us is that first day in early spring when the male starts singing from the top of one of the tall trees near our cottage. He is always the first to start the dawn chorus each morning—the blackbirds follow, but for a time his is the only voice in the pre-dawn gloom. It’s a lovely way to wake up. 

Song thrush. Photo by Tony Wills.

Song thrush. Photo by Tony Wills.

The males stop singing later in the summer—maybe it’s to do with having established their territory and bred successfully. I miss their song when it stops, and so it’s always such a delight when, in the cold grey days of November, for some reason they start up again. A male has been singing his heart out around us for the last fortnight or so. His favourite perch is an ash tree in next door’s garden. It’s wonderful to hear. His song isn’t as full as in the spring, but it is still a thing of beauty.

I love the way thrushes repeat phrases as they sing. The ones around us seem to prefer three repetitions per phrase: I wonder if this is a regional thing? Elsewhere I have read of twice-repetitions being the norm.

(Even though we have two native thrush species, the song thrush and the mistle thrush (Turdus viscivorus) here in the UK, the song thrush is just the ‘thrush’ to me and many others, as mistle thrushes are so rarely seen. I have seen one once in the 22 years I have been living in our village.) 

When Chap and I were on holiday in New Zealand we were fascinated to learn that many British birds had been introduced to the country in the Victorian period—the settlers were homesick, I guess. Even though thrushes are now struggling in the UK and are a Red List endangered species here, they are thriving in New Zealand. We were delighted at several camp sites to find the thrushes so tame that they would hop around our feet and feed on the chopped dried fruit (apricots and mangoes) we put down for them. We were also saddened to hear at one vineyard that the thrushes are such a threat to the grape harvest that the vineyard owner shot them as pests.