Redwings
Grey winter days are certainly made more colourful when Redwings are in the area – will you see them this year?
Why grey winter days are made brighter by this colourful character
We were taking another of our lockdown walks around Llandudno on the North Wales coast. On this particular morning, the sunny weather had tempted us to go further, so we were exploring an area of fields and woodland a couple of miles from home, quite an adventure to try somewhere different from our usual walk on the Great Orme. We scrambled up an especially steep, muddy slope and paused by a field gate at the top to scan for birds; always a good excuse when you want to catch your breath.
The view looking back across Llandudno towards the Great Orme was impressive; the huge limestone headland towered over the town, while the blue sea looked almost inviting. In the immediate foreground was a pasture field, bordered by prickly Hawthorn hedgerows, dotted with the odd spangle of red from an overlooked berry.
At first glance with the naked eye, it appeared to be an empty field of grass waving in the breeze, not a grazing animal or bird to be seen, just an irregular pattern of brown clumps scattered across the field where the farmer had spread manure to fertilise it. Then we looked more closely with the binoculars and realised some of the brown clumps were moving, and that they were in fact birds!
Dotted across the field were lots and lots of Redwings, the smallest of the thrush species that overwinter here in Britain, but arguably the most handsome. Their brown backs blended in with the lumps of manure, which explained why we’d not noticed them at first glance, but when some of the birds turned around, they showed off their distinctive streaky throat and breast, bold cream supercilium and that eponymous rusty-red patch just under the wing.
There must have been nearly 60 birds gathered in this field, and they were all feeding voraciously; clearly, those clumps of manure held tasty grubs to eat, and the Redwings were taking full advantage of the farmer’s unintended bounty. In among the flock of Redwings were also a few Mistle Thrushes – these tall birds with their more upright stance had greyerbrown backs and distinctive black dots across the throat and belly.
Between them all, they seemed to be systematically working their way across the whole field, probing and poking their bill into every clump of manure to look for a tasty invertebrate to eat, and they were all far too busy to notice us watching them through our binoculars, enthralled as we were with this wonderful spectacle in the sunshine.
Listen at night
About a million Redwings (scientific name: Turdus iliacus) over-winter in Britain, and the majority come from Scandinavia to spend the winter months here to take advantage of our milder, maritime climate, and the availability of suitable food, such as berries, worms, and fruit. These birds generally arrive initially on the east coast of Britain in autumn and as the season progresses, they gradually spread westwards.
They tend to migrate at night, so after dark is a good time to listen out for their thin, high-pitched ‘tseeep’ call as they fly. It may be faint, but the sound can carry a long way and it enables the birds to maintain contact with one another as they travel. They are nomadic birds, so they don’t necessarily head for the same area each winter; the Redwings we were watching may well have spent last winter elsewhere in Britain, or even in another European country.
They are attracted by food availability in our hedgerows, orchards and fields, and will even visit suburban gardens when conditions are particularly harsh, but once that food source is exhausted, they will move on.
A smaller number of Redwings also join us here in winter from their summer territories in Iceland, though this separate subspecies ( Turdus iliacus coburni) tends to be restricted to the western edges of Britain.
These birds are slightly larger, with longer wings, as well as having a darker brown back and buffer underparts. So, we spent some time checking through the busily feeding flock in front of us, in case we could pick out an Icelandic bird.
Redwings are classified in the UK as
Red Listed under the Birds of Conservation Concern, and are protected here as a Schedule 1 Breeding Bird under the Wildlife and Countryside Act, 1981, because so few Redwings breed in Britain. Just a handful of birds, perhaps as few as 18 pairs, manage to breed in the northern reaches of Scotland.
Vocal birds in spring
These glorious birds are very much winter visitors to our shores, so our responsibility to them is to provide essential food and cover during the harsher winter months. Come the spring, the Redwings will return to their respective breeding grounds in Scandinavia, Russia, and Iceland; though some birds that overwintered further south in Europe may stop off briefly in eastern Britain on their return spring migration northwards.
Redwings like to nest low down in boggy woodland and Birch forest, making a neat nest either in a low shrub or on the ground itself for their clutch of four to six eggs. Hatching after 11 days of incubation, the chicks fledge after a further 12 days and are fed by their parents for another two weeks.
In contrast to their quiet ‘ tseeep’ flight calls we hear in autumn and winter, Redwings are very vocal in spring, and have a wide variety of song. In fact, much as we say in Britain that if you can’t place a song it will be a Great Tit, we have found the same applies to Redwing in Finland. We have frequently heard a snatch of unfamiliar song and tracked it through the forest to its source, only to find that the songster is yet another Redwing.
Who knows whether we can travel to Finland this spring to enjoy Redwings on their breeding grounds? But, in the meantime, we can certainly enjoy these handsome, striking winter thrushes in our fields and hedgerows, as they add a welcome splash of colour to these drab winter days.
Ruth Miller is one half of The Biggest Twitch team, and along with partner Alan Davies, set the then world record for most bird species seen in a year – 4,341, in 2008, an experience they wrote about in their book, The Biggest Twitch. Indeed, Ruth is still the female world record-holder! As well as her work as a tour leader, she is the author of the Birds, Boots and Butties books, on walking, birding and tea-drinking in North Wales, and previously worked as the RSPB’s head of trading. She lives in North Wales. birdwatchingtrips.co.uk