NATURE’S WAY WINTER BIRDLIFE

ALL’S FA R E ... David Chapman says even the gregarious can become aggressive and territorial when food is scarce during cold snaps

E HAVE experienced some unusually low temperatures in W recent winters, causing particular problems for our birdlife. can’t afford to carry a lot of extra fat to get them through the cold season so they need to feed every day. If they can’t locate food in their normal environment they must somewhere else to find it – this is why we often see mass North Sea and they usually arrive in late movements of birds during cold weather. October or November. Low temperatures affect different birds The biggest flocks are always seen on in different ways. Thrushes, for example, the east coast of England and tend to feed on berries during autumn but once they are in Britain they disperse and early winter. However, there is a into smaller flocks to find food. period between mid-December and The fieldfare, Turdus pilaris, is the late January when there are few berries larger of the two wintering thrushes and is around. Instead, they tend to look for the more easily identified. It is about the Although a frequent colonies will gang up on a potential , the larvae of various size of a blackbird (itself a member of the winter visitor, the predator and bombard it with droppings! and other . family) and has a delightful, fieldfare rarely In winter, remain quite bold breeds in Britain If the ground is frozen or covered in ochre-toned patch on its upper breast, and robust in their defence of what is snow at this time, thrushes are badly marked with dark spots. Unlike the valuable to them, usually a supply of Even the healthy fieldfares felt the WATCH OUT: SNIPE affected. A couple of years ago we had a simple spots seen on a , food. Flocks of fieldfares will descend on I noticed one in particular that need to establish a pecking order, some Keep an eye out for a snipe or woodcock in your garden prolonged cold snap in January, and for however, the markings on the flanks of the a tree – a or hawthorn for example – looked a little sickly. One of its eyes didn’t trying to defend several apples at a during cold weather. These wading birds have bills the first time ever I saw a member of the fieldfare comprise a series of arrowhead and stay there until it is completely open properly and its plumage looked a time. It seemed strange to me that they that are disproportionately long compared with their bodies (the thrush family – the fieldfare – coming into shapes. Its head and rump are pale grey, stripped of berries. bit ragged. When danger threatened it should waste so much energy and risk snipe has a body length of about my garden to feed on apples I’d thrown on contrasting markedly with the dark tail, While food is plentiful, they are happy was the last to fly away, and often it didn’t injury when there was actually plenty 18cm and a bill length of about the ground. I also had regular visits from brown back and white underwing. to work together for the good of the move at all – as a result it would feed when of food for all of them. 7cm; the woodcock is slightly another thrush relation – the . Always found in flocks, the fieldfare is flock. However, I noticed a change in the others took flight. But the first of its I feel a little guilty for enjoying the bigger). Watch out for them probing These two birds are only seen in Britain a gregarious bird and is fascinating to their behaviour two years ago when own species to return would always attack cold weather. I know it brings hardship the ground anywhere that the sun during the winter, having migrated from watch. There is definitely a vindictive sustenance was scarce – they were this individual. It would try to defend to our wildlife but it also provides us thaws out the surface, usually on south-facing slopes, or where there . Their movement is often streak in its nature, though – during the unwilling to share those apples with itself but ultimately gave way to the with fantastic opportunities to watch is running water. associated with an anticyclone over the breeding season in Scandinavia, fieldfare other birds or even each other. bullying tactics of the others. unusual species. ■

14 The Caravan Club Magazine December 2011 The Caravan Club Magazine 15