We have had three interesting visitors to the front garden recently.

A single fieldfare, presumably the same one, has spent a large part of every day for a month feeding on the apples lying on the ground (left). If any other birds dare to go near the apples, it chases them away (mainly blackbirds).

Just after Christmas a male blackcap appeared and fed on an apple while the fieldfare wasn’t looking. It hasn’t been seen again but a female blackcap (red-brown rather than black crown – right) has started to come into the garden and, despite constant attacks from the much larger fieldfare, keeps coming back for more apple.

Blackcaps that winter in this country come here from Central Europe. Fieldfares arrive from northern areas such as Scandinavia.

RP