Fieldfare

It is not often I wake up with a mission in mind, but this morning I decided that I needed to herald winter in by seeking out the one bird that for me confirms the season: the Fieldfare Turdus pilaris. Described aptly by the Birds of the Western Palearctic (BWP) as a "rakish" bird, the Fieldfare is the aristocrat of the Thrushes (although its tendency to roam in packs would perhaps contradict this). Chaucer's 'frosty feldefares' are, for most of us in the UK, winter visitors from the frosty north, although they do occasionally breed in the Highlands.

Meaning, from the Anglo-Saxon felde-fare, a traveller over the fields, the Fieldfare, like many birds, has a host of local names throughout the land: a Feltiflier to the Scots, a Velverd to the people of Wiltshire, and a Storm Bird to those from Norfolk, with the Welsh name picking up on its noisy calls: they call it socen llwyd, which means 'grey pig'.

A resplendent coat of many hues, chestnut back, speckles on a soft beige breast with a slate grey head and black tail, the Fieldfare stands proud, no more so than when it is perched in a wind blown tree in November with its kin, and its cousin, the Redwing.

Fieldfares, and Redwings seem to leave as quickly as they arrive, once April is here these handsome thrushes beat their way back to northern skies. As John Clare wrote, Fieldfares "come and go on winters chilling wing / And seem to share no sympathy with Spring", March in The Shepherd's Calendar.