Who are our winter visitors?

flown in from Scandinavia , mainly to eat grubs but also to feast on all our apples which we don’t harvest as imperfect in lots of ways – too small, too pale , ripe too late. All great for these feeding flocks of visitors who will entirely clear the fruit by spring. 

Mervyn is an accredited ringer and is monitoring migrant populations of Redwings, Field Fares and Thrushes. All his data goes to the British Ornithological Society . He sets his nets in which he drops a device which plays the call of a male Lithuanian Redwing and it certainly attracts the crowds. A quick weigh and examination follows and the birds fly off unharmed but ringed . Sometimes he catches ringed birds but more often not. More details will follow !