Redwing taking bread at bird table (1 Viewer)

[WelchS]

I'm trying to find out how frequently Redwings (Turdus iliacus) come to garden bird tables to take bread. I've not come across this before, but my parents had one at a bird table, squabbling with Blackbird for bread, for a whole morning last week (23/2/05) - in Banchory, Scotland. Snow was lying at the time, but there were plenty of berries (e.g. cotoneaster) in the area which this species normally feeds on in hard weather.

BWP concise does not mention it. I did a quick web search but got bogged down with "Red-winged Blackbird" info, which is another matter entirely...

Can anyone please advise?

Many thanks

Stephen Welch
Lothian, Scotland

 

[Nutcracker]

Try looking through this search:

http://www.google.com/search?as_q=r...s_occt=any&as_dt=i&as_sitesearch=&safe=images

 

[WelchS]

Many thanks Nutcracker - that gave me a manageable list to look throo.

BUT, as far as I can see, the words "Redwing" and "Bread" never appear in the same sentence in any of the links it unearths. So it looks like websearching has drawn a blank on this one...

I also checked the very useful complete BB index (available on http://www.britishbirds.co.uk/ but it seems there's never been a BB short note about any abnormal Redwing food (except for one about an individual eating a Greenfinch, which is way beyond what I'm dealing with here!).

Cheers

Stephen

 

[Nutcracker]

Unfortunately my search relies on the prospective sites mentioning latin names - that was the only way I could think of excluding American blackbirds (Agelaius) without also excluding our blackbird, which might very well feature in any page mentioning redwings eating bread.

Might be worth trying the search string
redwing bread -blackbird
though, just in case

 

[Richard W]

often have Redwing and Fieldfare in good numbers at work and not once seen them on my table, I put out bread, fruit etc which attracts plenty of Blackbirds.

never seen them eating anything but berries and windfall apples here, sounds very unusual.

 

[timmyjones]

why dont you try puting down rasins as the blackbird would enjoy them too

 

[Richard W]

why dont you try puting down rasins as the blackbird would enjoy them too

I do

hoped it might tempt some Redwing/Fieldfare from the fields next door but the only thing that works is halved apples scattered under trees, they can't resist those.

 

[Gaukur]

Redwings are very common at my feeding station here in northern Iceland. Accepting bread besides lots of other stuff. In autumn and spring I easily get some tens of redwings each day.

 

[WelchS]

Redwings are very common at my feeding station here in northern Iceland. Accepting bread ...

Thanks for that reply Gaukur - very interesting!

I also posted the query on surfbirds and got no response so does seem that it is unusual here in the UK.

I'm presuming that when they visit your feeding station there are natural foods, like berries, available in your neighbourhood? Is there snow cover when they visit? If other food is available the question is why is this behaviour different in Iceland than the UK - after all some of your Redwings are the ones we have here in great numbers every winter...

Stephen

 

[Nutcracker]

Perhaps it could be something like I've seen with Fieldfares - the human-habituated birds stay in Scandinavia for the winter, are tame, and feed on birdtables, while the shy, non-habituated ones don't dare to approach people and can't find enough food in the wild, so are forced to migrate to warmer places like Britain

Just speculation, I don't recollect seeing Redwings on feeders in Scandinavia, though my 'sample size' is very small.

 

[Gaukur]

I do not feed the thrushes unless temperatures are below freezing or snow covering the ground. Most often they do disappear from my feeding station when natural food becomes available.

 

[Edward]

When it get's very cold the local Redwings sit on the pavement outside the local baker's waiting for people to take pity on them. Judging by the amount of crumbs outside the baker chucks out quite a lot. You practically have to kick the Redwings out of the way to get inside when it's -10°C.

E

 

[WelchS]

These are all fascinating observations since as far as I've been able to determine this is still very unusual for Redwing in the UK.

Nutcracker's observation is surely the key. Fieldfares would not be common at bird tables here either but there has also been one coming to bread throughout this week in the same garden in NE Scotland, actually on the bird table when snow was heaviest on Wednesday. This species is bolder and more able to hold its own with the Blackbirds, who defend "their" food source. The Redwing came off worst in squabbles with the Blackbird and this week has been skulking under the hedge, perhaps hoping to pick up scraps after the bigger thrushes have gone.

A more detailed log of my observations is on one of my garden birds pages here:

http://www.geocities.com/steve_extra/garden_log2.html

I'd still be interested in hearing more about either of the winter thrushes on bird tables in the UK. Whatever will be next - Waxwings taking bread? No doubt someone will tell me they already do...

Stephen

 

[A CHAPLIN]

Hi Stephen,

Just had a look at your website love the snow, pity about the Yahoo advert on the right side advertising a device for control of sparrows and other nuisance pests, is somebody winding me up? Just looked at it for correct wording whilst typing this and it has gone. Very strange!

Ann Chaplin

 

[WelchS]

I don't believe it - what a cheek of yahoo to put that advert next to my page!

It is for a US pest control site: http://www.absolutebirdcontrol.com/

It must have been produced "intelligently" as I care a lot about "House Sparrows" and they are mentioned elsewhere on my garden birds site! By the look of it, they are talking about some other sparrow species - the picture seems to be a Song Sparrow http://www.absolutebirdcontrol.com/sparrows.htm. Do the Americans control these as "pests"?

Gulls are targeted as well - another of my favourites!

Thanks for alerting me - maybe it's time to find a new web host. :C

Anyway, back to the snow, those pics are from a few years ago - 1995 I think when we had over 20" (50cm) snow and the temperature dropped to -20C (-4F). This year snow has not exceeded a foot (30cm) in depth...

Stephen

 

[Ruby]

Hi,

The Thrushes come to feed in my garden, but very much dependant upon temperature.

There will always be a few Blackbirds and maybe a Song Thrush or two, but if the weather gets down close to freezing suddenly I find myself with quite a few Redwings, Fieldfares and the number of Blackbirds probably triples.

The Blackbirds actually feed on the birdtable and even try to get onto the hanging feeders, but the rest just make do with what is on the ground (bread, seeds, raisons etc) and the apples that I hang up.

I've never seen a Redwing actually on the birdtable, even though they will hang about underneath looking for scraps.

I was at Pulburough Brooks yesterday and there was a very confiding Redwing just sitting by the side of the path, being admired by a crowd of people at a distance of 2m or so!! Didn't seem to be injured or anything and eventually just wandered off...

 

[Edward]

Not only do Redwings take bread from Icelandic gardens, but one garden birder had a Gyr Falcon "pecking at bread crumbs" on her lawn in N Iceland yesterday. Can honestly say that I've never heard of bread as a Gyr Falcon prey item before! Is that normal in the north, Gaukur???

E

 

[WelchS]

A remarkable observation. I suppose if it happened in the UK it would be written off as an obvious domesticated "escape"...

It did occur to me after starting this thread that I was perhaps asking the wrong Q - maybe it should have been "are there any bird species which finding themselves under severe hardship would not take advantage of bread offered to them?". Raptors were the first which came to my mind as obvious candidates where the answer would be yes, but you have just disproved that. My own original posting was prompted by one on surfbirds mentioned a Goosander coming to bread at a duck pond in Aberdeen - another obvious candidate excluded. More generally, taking bread, or not, is often a major issue of contention with various vagrant waterfowl, but it certainly does not prove domesticated origin in general as these examples show.

All this notwithstanding, there does however seem to be a systematic difference between the sort of behaviours you are describing for your Redwings and most of the ones we have in the UK. Even though we might find the odd bird taking bread when forced to we certainly don't have them crowded around the doors of our baker's shops...

S.

 

[Edward]

A remarkable observation. I suppose if it happened in the UK it would be written off as an obvious domesticated "escape"...

It did occur to me after starting this thread that I was perhaps asking the wrong Q - maybe it should have been "are there any bird species which finding themselves under severe hardship would not take advantage of bread offered to them?". Raptors were the first which came to my mind as obvious candidates where the answer would be yes, but you have just disproved that. My own original posting was prompted by one on surfbirds mentioned a Goosander coming to bread at a duck pond in Aberdeen - another obvious candidate excluded. More generally, taking bread, or not, is often a major issue of contention with various vagrant waterfowl, but it certainly does not prove domesticated origin in general as these examples show.

All this notwithstanding, there does however seem to be a systematic difference between the sort of behaviours you are describing for your Redwings and most of the ones we have in the UK. Even though we might find the odd bird taking bread when forced to we certainly don't have them crowded around the doors of our baker's shops...

S.

It was indeed a remarkable observation.There's no shortage of prey for the Gyr Falcon in the area it was seen, masses of Eider, Ptarmigan, a couple of King Eiders too if it was feeling like something upmarket. No idea what it was doing pecking at breadcrumbs though.

As you say the bread test for vagrant wildfowl is not really that reliable. Birds often behave as the birds around them do. A Wood Duck (no captive ducks in Iceland except giant farmyard Mallards) which once turned up in Reykjavik was very calm and "tame" on the pond in Reykjavik when surrounded by other Icelandic pond ducks as Eider, Scaup, Mallard and Tufted Duck but was later seen on a lake at the edge of the city with "wilder" Tufties and was extremely wary and skittish. I don't suppose Scaup and Eider usually come to bread in the city centre in most countries, do they?

E