Tag Archives: svarttrost

Waxwings on apples

Waxwings (sidensvans) have arrived here in numbers with about 70 in the garden today! Most of their favourite berry, rowan (rogn) had gone by the time they arrived due to the large flocks of thrushes that were here a week ago (mainly fieldfares, redwings and blackbirds / gråtrost, rødvingetrost og svarttrost). They had opened up quite a few apples near the tops of the trees before they moved on, and now the waxwings are enjoying them – they luckily don’t try to open other apples, so that there are still many for us! We’ve been harvesting the last few days, but still a lot near the tops of the trees that are difficult to reach even with the apple picker!

 

Fieldfare migration

With Covid a long way from being over, I’m wishing I was a bird! We probably won’t be visiting family in the UK this winter and this morning there were some 50 fieldfares (gråtrost) and a few redwings and blackbirds feeding on rowan berries in the garden and above I could witness thousands of thrushes passing the house towards west. On some autumn days thrushes will stream past all day in the same direction, maybe following the fjord. The weather chart shows perfect flying conditions with light north easterly winds between Norway and the UK, so I’m thinking these are bound where I can’t go…



Blackbird

Nice to wake up to a blackbird (svarttrost)in full song this morning.  The first week in April is pretty much always when they start singing here!

A great tit (kjøttmeis) can also be heard. There are at least 3 territories in the garden and surrounding gardens this year. 
Also this week, curlews (storspove) have started singing in the bay and highlight of the week was a goldfinch (stillits) singing in the garden. It moved around and sang in the 3 different places…sadly, it didn’t return yesterday. It seems that goldfinches have started colonising this area as a breeding bird with single breeding records the last 3 years.

Thrush invasion

Unusually large numbers of thrushes, mainly fieldfare (gråtrost), redwings (rødvingetrost) and a few blackbirds (svarttrost) in the garden at the moment, mainly on the rowans (wild and planted for the birds) and apples (need to harvest earlier than normal this year).
This year is a bumper year for rowans near the fjord, but poor a little inland due probably to frosts which didn’t affect us! Late frost at the time of fruit flowering iis very unusual where I am near the fjord (due to a combination of warmth from the fjord and the fact that there isn’t night at this time!). This has concentrated thrushes near the fjord where the food is!

Thrush invasion

  1. Blackbird on apples

2. Redwing and fieldfares on rowan

3. Fieldfare on rowan (this tree was more or less stripped of berries during the day)

Yew berry year and the vine

There are an enormous number of yew berries on the tree next to the kitchen window this year  and this video shows how a vine (probably Vitis coignetiae) has found its way towards the light high up in the yew, which is Taxus × media “Hicksii”, the Anglojap or Hicks’ yew,  which is a hybrid of Taxus baccata and Taxus cuspidata.
Most will be left for the birds, bringing both waxwings (sidensvans) and blackbirds (svarttrost) close to the house!

More birds in the garden; 5th January 2018

1.  Blackbird (svarttrost) and great spotted woodpecker (flaggspett)

2. Bullfinches (male and female; dompap) on plum buds (not too happy with this), there were 8 birds altogether….hopefully they won’t do too much damage… :(

3. Fieldfare (gråtrost) on apple

Garden birds weekend 11th-12th February