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Winter Thrushes & Waxwing

©Erica Olsen/FLPA

©Mike Lane/FLPA

Fieldfare and redwing are two of the commonest species wintering in Britain.

From time to time, as frost and snow take their grip on the British winter, three beautiful and exotic-looking visitors to our shores turn up in our gardens, to the delight of anyone lucky enough to get close views of them.

Two of these winter visitors are members of the thrush family, closely related to the more familiar song and mistle thrushes. The redwing and the fieldfare are often known simply as ‘winter thrushes’, as they come in their millions each autumn from Scandinavia and Iceland to spend the winter months here. Like waders and wildfowl, they do so to take advantage of our relatively mild winter climate compared with places to the north and east of Britain.

Usually they spend most of the time roaming the wider countryside in huge flocks, stripping the hedgerows bare of berries or feeding in muddy fields. But when snow and ice make finding food more difficult, they often head into our gardens in search of windfall apples, berry bushes and other food we provide.

Of the two, the redwing is by far the most familiar. Our smallest thrush, it is a shade shorter than the song thrush, with darker brown upper parts, spotted under parts, and a distinctive creamy stripe above the eye. Its name comes from the orange-red patch on its flanks, which is more obvious as the bird takes to the air, lifting its wings.

The fieldfare is even more colourful: a large bird, almost as big as a mistle thrush, with a long tail, grey head, reddish-brown back and warm yellow on the breast. They look very different from the usual garden birds, so much so that when they invaded our gardens a couple of winters ago, there were several reports of ‘cuckoos’ in the middle of winter! Like mistle thrushes, fieldfares can be aggressive birds, defending a berry bush against any intruders that might steal their food. But they are less solitary than our two resident species, and usually travel in noisy flocks, chattering to each other as they go.

Both redwings and fieldfares arrive in Britain during October, the redwings usually a week or two ahead of their larger cousins. On clear autumn nights, listen out for their distinctive high-pitched call, which people once supposed was made by witches flying overhead on their broomsticks!

Redwings and fieldfares can be seen in the countryside right the way through to March or even April, but once spring has arrived, the vast majority have already left our shores: the fieldfares to Scandinavia and northern Russia; the redwings to Scandinavia and Iceland. Very few remain to breed, which in some ways is odd, given the huge numbers wintering here, and the fact that fieldfares, in particular, can be found nesting as far south as Hungary, on the same latitude as southern Britain.

The third member of this winter trio is even more exotic than the other two. Waxwings are starling-sized birds with a delicate buffish-brown plumage, black and yellow wings tipped with red – these resemble sealing wax, hence the bird’s name – and a wispy crest, giving them a faintly comical appearance.

Unlike other winter visitors, waxwings are a so-called ‘irruptive’ species, which means that in some years hardly any come to spend the winter in Britain, while in other years there may be tens of thousands. Their appearance here does not, as some suppose, foretell a hard winter. It is simply a reflection of their population level and the amount of food back home in Scandinavia – during years of berry shortages and high numbers of birds, they will head south, otherwise they stay put.

Unlike other rare birds, waxwings rather like our suburbs and gardens, where they can often find plenty of juicy red berries to eat. They also regularly turn up in supermarket car parks, which are often planted with berry-bearing bushes whose fruit appears at just the right time for the waxwings’ arrival.

If you are lucky enough to discover a flock of waxwings feeding in your front garden, be prepared for another invasion – from hordes of eager birders wanting to see this beautiful bird.

©Gianpiero Ferrari/FLPA

Waxwings may be rare and exotic, but they are often found in gardens where they feed on berry bushes.