fieldfare behaviour
nutcutlet
Posts: 26,974
Most years the field fares come through in a flock, eat all the berries, then leave. This year during the bad weather a few hung around under the bird feeders. Now they've all gone except one and it's behaving like a blackbird, chasing everything else off the food. It will wear itself out. I've got food in 3 places and its constantly going from one to the other. I haven't seen it eat anything yet.
I've never seen this behaviour before, is it normal?
In the sticks near Peterborough
0
Posts
Seems to happen here most years.
Thanks Berghill. They've never hung around here in the depths of winter or shown any interest in my feeding efforts in previous years
In the sticks near Peterborough
We've got just the one fieldfare who's sort of 'shadowing' the blackbirds.
Well, yesterday he was 'shadowing' the blackbirds - today he's taken up sentry duty in the branches over the chopped apples and divebombs any blackbird who dares to trespass - my birdwatch numbers are going to be seriously down this year if he carries on that sort of behaviiour
We put out apples for them and the blackbirds. The stay at home fieldfare is now guarding about 20 apples. He must eat them at sometime, but he/she does spendan lot of time defending them, even from other fieldfares
I was watching a Mistle Thrush doing this to a flock of waxwings just after Christmas, and another one chasing away Long-tailed Tits from a hawthorn that still had some berries left. (Although of course the L-t Ts wouldn't have been interested in the berries!)
Snows gone and so have the fieldfares.
funny but there was lone feidfare here flying forlorn with out its mates.
I thought my fieldfare was the only one that behaved like that. He moved in about 10 days ago on his own. At the beginning he was very shy but has now completely taken over my little walled garden here in the Western part of Germany and especially goes for the blackbirds.