Redwing

I've seen the odd single redwing in the garden this winter eating fallen apples, but today a whole flock arrived to gobble up the remaining cotoneaster berries. This is no great surprise, as there are now very few hawthorn berries remaining on our local trees. Last January, after a similarly hard winter, redwings and fieldfares were frequent visitors to the garden.

The redwing is the UK's smallest true thrush. In the photograph you can see the creamy strip above the eye, but you have to look quite hard to see the orange-red flank patch. They are a Red List species, so it's lovely to have them visiting the garden.

Unfortunately, this morning we had persistent rain, which made photography quite difficult. The cotoneaster is in front of our house, and our neighbours have a similar one, somewhat further away. I took this photograph from our bedroom window, but had to be patient, becasue the redwings were definitely favouring our neighbour's bush, which wasn't visible from my vantage point.

While I was waiting I recorded a group of few jackdaws on a neighbouring roof, quite unusual visitors to our urban area. There was also a single goldcrest foraging in the back garden, but it never came close enough to allow a decent photograph.

I tried to take a photograph of Spike the hedgehog this evening, but he was very unwilling to co-operate. I think he's definitely a teenager now - all he seems to do is sleep, eat large platefuls of food and make his room messy! But so far he seems to be thriving - just hope he continues to do so until it's warm enough to release him.