Male song thrush has a fluting sound
Have you got song thrushes visiting your garden? We have – and it has been excellent news for our strawberry crop.
A pair chose to nest over the road, flying into our garden to find food for their chicks. They left behind telltale evidence – discarded snail shells decorated the brick-weave of the fruit garden and crunched underfoot as we inspected our ripening crops.
Once each brood of youngsters was out of the nest, their parents brought them across the road and hid them at the base of the raspberry canes. Here, they soon learned to find snails and slugs for themselves. Not surprisingly, they also took quite a few raspberries – but not enough to worry us. They could not get at the strawberries, which were well netted, and we had a really bumper crop of largely slug and snail-free fruit.
Song thrushes are a little smaller than blackbirds, with warm brown backs and spotted chests. The wonderful fluting song of the male is characterised by repeated phrases, occasionally copied from the ring tones of phones or the noises from car alarms.
When they are not eating snails and slugs, they will pull worms from your lawn or take berries from trees and shrubs.
Some British song thrushes choose to migrate south for the winter but recent analyses of the results of the BTO's database of movements of ringed birds suggests that most now spend the whole year here.
Presumably the trend towards warmer winters has increased the survival of birds that do not migrate.
Much has been written about song thrushes over the last 15 years, since we discovered that half of them had disappeared and the species had consequently been added to the Red List of conservation concern.
Their behaviour in the countryside is somewhat similar to that in our garden; they nest in woodland or thick hedges and venture out into the fields to find food. The widespread use of slug pellets was presumably very bad news for song thrushes and millions were lost from the countryside.
These days, there are more of them in our gardens than there are in the whole of the UK's farmland.
There are several Red List species that are still doing well in gardens, from the humble house sparrow to the secretive spotted flycatcher.
Each of us can make a difference to these popular species just by gardening in a wildlife friendly way. For some clues on how to make the most of the wildlife potential of your own back-yard see Gardening for Birdwatchers, by Mike Toms and Ian and Barley Wilson.
The authors have used their experiences when designing the BTO's Nunnery Garden to suggest ways in which we can all make a difference for wildlife. They have proved that it is possible to create really lovely gardens that are great for wildlife – and in which you can grow plenty of strawberries.
Graham Appleton is from the British Trust for Ornithology (BTO), which has its based in Thetford. Learn more about the work of the BTO at www.bto.org
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Weather for Bury St Edmunds
Thursday 09 February 2012
Today
Light snow
Temperature: -2 C to 1 C
Wind Speed: 6 mph
Wind direction: North
Tomorrow
Sunny spells
Temperature: -5 C to 0 C
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