Immigrants

Suddenly we have immigrants from Scandinavia flying overhead and feeding on the playing field beside our house, mostly....

....redwings but also....

....this very smart bird which, at first, I thought was a fieldfare, a bird that's often in the company of redwings. I'm now fairly certain it's a mistle thrush, though I don't know what a mistle thrush, which I think of as resident here, is doing in the company of foreign redwings.

Also with them were a number of blackbirds. While some may have been our local birds this one, which came into our garden to dig for worms, may be an immigrant: apparently the black bill is typical of the Scandinavians. It's very welcome to a meal but I wasn't very impressed with its table manners.

What was surprising about the visitors was that, for some time they have been ignoring our rowan tree, which backs on to the playing field and is currently laden with what look like very juice berries. If my memory serves me, this time a year ago the redwings, fieldfares and blackbirds had stripped the berries long before the leaves had fallen. Perhaps this year's fruit is only just ripe because they've now, tentatively, started to eat it.