There is something magical about a visit from redwings. I saw them arrive at the bottom of our garden when I was clutching my first cup of tea of the day for warmth at the crack of dawn, around 8am. They had come such a long way I wished I could give them something to make their journey worth while. This misty picture shows only six – a few hours later there must have been at least 100 redwings flying back and forward between the few trees left standing in our back lane.
According to our bird book redwings are winter visitors. They migrate south from Scandinavia every year but they only appear in town gardens in the coldest winters when the fields are covered with snow. This year city gardens are covered with snow too and I can’t imagine the birds found enough berries in our holly tree (and Rita’s next door) to feed so many of them.
The redwings arrived early on the 23rd December and stayed until late on Christmas Eve. To be honest, at first we didn’t know what they were – except that they clearly weren’t blackbirds, robins or chaffinches. With the help of our cheapo binoculars (and a flash of sunlight) we saw the pinkish blush and speckled marks on the breast of what our bird book describes as the smallest thrush visiting the UK from Scandinavia.
A bit of Googling reveals that they are one of the many bird species threatened by climate change. Rising temperatures are reducing their habitat. There’s even a story in the Daily Mail which (given my last blog) is a surprise but I wasn’t going to pay to read the rest of it particularly since you can read the original source, a report by Dr Richard Gregory on the RSPB website, for free. According to Barford Community website redwings are less robust than other thrushes and very vulnerable in cold spells if holly trees have been stripped by blackbirds and mistle thrushes (not to mention holly wreath makers).
The RSPB says redwings eat worms, snails and berries. Worms and snails were under a thick blanket of snow and I couldn’t see many berries on our holly tree so I put out a tray of dried cranberries and raisins which was the best I could find in our Christmas larder. But I have just found this fantastic picture by Duncan Brown on Flickr which shows at least one redwing enjoying a real feast at Cradlehall in Inverness. Enough, as one of the Flickr commentators says, to feed a whole flock. Hope our redwings find it.
Here’s a redwing having one of his “five a day”.
Photo taken by Duncan Brown at Cradlehall, Inverness.
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