Fieldfares in Virginia Water

Looking out into the back garden this morning, across the tracks of the Muntjac deer that crept in over the snow yesterday, I saw a small flock of fieldfare – beautiful birds from the same family as the much more common song thrush.  Sadly, they are on the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds’ (RSPB) Red List, indicating that they are of the highest conservation priority.  I have never seen them before where we live, and they seem to have been attracted by the hawthorn berries and rose hips in the hedge at the end of the garden.  As the RSPB says, fieldfares are “Best looked for in the countryside, along hedges and in fields. Hawthorn hedges with berries are a favourite feeding area”.

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