We have a couple of families of Song Thrushes in our garden all year, they're always pottering about on the ground, hunting snails and thrashing them against stones to get to their juicy innards.
In times of lasting snow-cover, however, their relatives come to visit, and they come in flocks of 20 or so. The hassle of hopping around looking for ground-based meals is not for them - they're a lot more acrobatic and they use this talent to raid whatever they can find in the fruit-trees...
The visitors are mainly Fieldfares, although there are a few Redwings tagging along.
All three species mentioned are on the RSPB Red List, and all three belong to the same genus: Turdus.
It seems a shame that these likeable little birds have been given such a crappy-sounding Latin moniker.
THE SMALL(ish) PRINT... (updated 23/07/2016)
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My those are sharp! Most impressive!
There were fieldfares & redwings in the graveyard over the back fence a few weeks back, mobbing the rowan trees - never been aware of that before. Mind you, we've had very few garden birds during the freezing weather, despite my best efforts to put out a variety of tasty snacks for them. Really don't know why. I doubt it can be the cats, because that doesn't seem to bother them the rest of the year.
We did have the bullfinches back though, feeding on the pyracantha berries, which was nice, especially 'cos it was only about a month ago that they first visited. Stocky wee critters, bullfinches.
Wonderful phootographs!