Tickled pink by dawn of redwing
SPRING was already wafting in the air long before the first strains of Auld Lang Syne rang out to welcome in 2020. Birch catkins had been dangling on branches in harmony with Christmas tree decorations, while snowdrops peered from soils untouched by frost as a prelude to the winter solstice.
It may still be tempting fate to question whether there has actually been a winter this year. Unseasonal double figure temperatures have banished snows and the gears on the phenological wheel appear recalibrated to see autumn cranking straight into springtime.
For me, there is one declaration that truly proclaims the arrival of the vernal season: the fluty tones of the song thrush delivered high from an exposed branch, each loud and clear note accentuated by being repeated twice. Treetops and rooftops are favourite perches for these piercing arias to be belted out long after sunrise and with reprises as gloom envelops late afternoons.
While listening to one strident song thrush proclaiming his territory under a setting sun last week, another diffident, softer melody began to ring out. High in a bareleaved birch a vibrating silhouette revealed the songster, a lone redwing parted from the flock to hone a voice for the long summer ahead.
Redwings are winter visitors to Britain, returning to Scandinavia and Siberia in late spring to fill the taiga forests with their incessant choruses, described in field guides as “blackbird like with short varied phrases in a clear and loud voice”.
A decade ago I spent midsummer in the wilds of Arctic Finland where the redwing soundtrack echoed around the clock, drowning out the subtler songs of greenish warblers, red-flanked bluetails and rustic buntings being delivered in the pine stands and impenetrable bogs.
Enjoying the redwing pour forth in the heart of the Home Counties had me sifting through the archives to see how unusual it is for these delightful thrushes with their creamy eyebrows and russet-tone flanks to burst into song so far south.
My boyhood AA Book of British Birds explained how the frequent sounds produced by redwings are the thin, high-pitched flight calls given out by migrating flocks at night. “The true song is rarely heard in Britain but a few stilted, fluting phrases from it sometimes occur in the communal warbling sub-song, with which flocks often greet the approach of spring,” the text explained before going on to ponder if redwings would one day fully establish themselves as breeding British birds.
The first UK redwing nest was discovered in Sutherland in 1925. By the time the AA book was published in 1969 nesting reports were so frequent that a small population was believed to have been thriving.
Half a century on and redwings remain one of our rarest nesting birds.the latest bulletin from the Rare Breeding Birds Panel reports between five and 20 pairs nested across 19 sites in 2016. These included sites in Cumbria, Perth and Kinross, Fair Isle and Shetland.
“A more typical year after the bumper report of 40 pairs in 2015,” say the panel. “Many pairs in remote areas are surely overlooked.”
Overall, there has been a marked 40 per cent decrease in nesting numbers over the past 25 years and this may well be linked to a warming climate being less hospitable for the so-calledviking Bird.
‘Winter visitor has settled’