Fieldfares

I was out walking this morning along part of the towpath of the Montgomery Canal (a section that is in fact also part of the Offa's Dyke long distance trail), and it was lovely to notice so many signs of spring - celandines, snowdrops, hazel catkins, and lots of birdsong too.

But winter hasn't quite passed away. Perhaps I've just not been out and about enough through the past winter weeks, but this was my first experience this year of one of the winter sights I really love - the huge flocks of fieldfares that we can see in our country fields. This is a northern thrush that will soon be heading back to its arctic summer breeding grounds, but they're still here for the moment, and quite noisily so, too. Though you don't notice that until you're almost upon them. Then with a sharp 'chacking' sound a small group of them bursts from the tall alder and ash trees along the canalside, to fly over and into the fields below us, where a good early season manuring has provided rich pickings in the form of small invertebrates.

You think you've removed them all from the tree, but get a bit closer, and another band bursts out and heads across in front of you. You can see the light grey undersides of their wings as they fly, and if any are low enough to see down onto them the light grey back above the tail is diagnostic. Couldn't be anything else really though: a big bird, big as a mistle thrush, which is what people have usually seen when they say to me, "There was a big bird in my garden this morning, brown and speckly and far too big to be a thrush!"

Anyway, get closer still, and more birds erupt from the tree; walk past, and they're still leaving the tree behind you to escape into the open field, even though the danger (for I presume our presence is what has started them into flight) has clearly gone past and is heading away from them. There will have been 3 to 5 hundred in the flock we saw today, but I've seen larger flocks than that. Often there are redwings with them, but not today so far as I could see, though there may have been a few blackbirds. There was also a band of starlings helping to prospect the field, but only about 30 or so birds.

Well, not too long now, and the fieldfares will have gone. Of course, this early taste of spring may yet be fooling all of us. But anyway, I'm glad I saw them today!