I am guilty of putting too many of my wildlife photos on my Facebook page and ignoring my blog. Time I rectified this. I put out some pieces of apple two days ago, in the hope of luring a fieldfare into the garden. Yesterday, we saw one sitting in a tree casing the joint and today - oh joy! - it actually came down and stayed long enough for me to take several pictures. I had never seen one so close-up before. Close-up through a telephoto lens, that is. It was actually a good thirty feet away, which is why the photos aren't as crisp as I'd like.
It was interesting to see the fieldfare next to the blackbird, to get an idea of their relative shapes and sizes. The blackbird is longer and slimmer, while the fieldfare is rounder and more like a song thrush and is in fact a member of the thrush family, which goes by the unfortunate Latin name of
Turdus. Thefieldfare is
Turdus pilaris. They are natives of Scandinavia but visit the milder climate of Britain in winter.
