Birding in October 2011

It is the height of the fruit season and almost every bird in Weston is cashing in. If like us you have berry-bearing shrubs in your garden, you cannot miss the blackbirds, song thrushes, starlings and pigeons gorging themselves, also the undercover raiders, whose foraging for fruits is less conspicuous, these include robins and blackcaps. Berries and fruit are an excellent source of nutrition, for birds such abundance makes it a lot easier to get into tip top condition for facing the tough months ahead.

Nuts are also plentiful at this time of the year, and many woodland and garden birds have strong associations with them. You may see the jay collecting acorns for its winter store, and the nuthatch will be collecting beech and hazel. The beech crop in our local woodland is an important factor in the winter survival of a wide range of species, including our familiar great and coal tits. With this abundance of natural food you may have noticed the lack of visitors to your bird feeders in particular the tits and finches. The answer of course, is that most birds have less need of your generosity just now as our countryside and gardens are awash with nature's bounty.

All around us our farmers are busy ploughing and harrowing which is attracting noisy flocks of herring gulls, seizing any food that is turned up. Herring gulls are to some extent inland-breeding birds nowadays and on occasions like this they sweep in from miles around. Some follow the tractor in a swirling white cloud, swooping down on anything interesting. Others less hungry stand about in the field or search in the newly turned soil. Some crows and rooks are dotted about amongst the gulls but they are in danger of being robbed by the gulls when they find anything edible vainly cawing away in defence.

Watch out for the arrival of our first winter thrushes, redwings and fieldfares either as single birds or in small groups. The redwings come from Iceland and Scandinavia. They are like dark song thrushes with a russet flash under the wing and a distinctive creamy eyebrow. The fieldfares, from Scandinavia or Germany, are like mistle thrushes with a bluish-grey head and a grey rump. Judging by previous years, by Christmas there will be three quarters of a million fieldfares in the U.K. and more than a million redwings.

D H