Flocks of redwings and fieldfares at Chavenage

Halfway through the morning I realised the early bright sunshine might not last. I’d had the idea of going to use the bright light to film a kingfisher I’d blipped a few days ago. Suddenly the notion of going somewhere completely different came to me. Recently I’d read on the local bird observations website that on the hilltops south of Nailsworth where there are wide open fields on the mostly flat rolling landscape large flocks of birds were congregating. In fact in the last two days there were reports and photos of peregrine falcons seen chasing these flocks.

My mind was made up and off I headed the six or seven miles to Chavenage, near to Westonbirt. I went by the back roads and before reaching the fields I stopped at Chavenage Green, which was a very important ancient local centre being where the Longtree Hundred meetings would have been held since late Saxon times. On the green I saw a traditional gypsy caravan with two horse grazing nearby tethered to big stakes. The caravan owners also had a big lorry with smoke escaping from a roof chimney and a solar panel leaning against the side. Two lurcher dogs barked at me without much force. I drove on a few hundred hards to where I thought the birds might gather and left the car to have a wander.

It was freezing in the strong easterly wind with a big wind chill factor. The sun had disappeared and big layers of clouds were scudding. Sheep grazed in a few fields where I assume as normal hill farmers from afar have rented grazing pastures for the remainder of the winter. I even saw small flocks of birds flying in between and around the sheep possibly finding gruns=bs and insects on the grounds disturbed  by their feet.

I walked on and then saw in the distance larger flocks of different sized birds on the far sides of the field, near some woodland. The birds would fly for a hundred yards and then settle back down on to the stubble. within a short while the flocks would take off and repeat the performance moving around the fields. Nearer to me I spotted a small group of skylarks  doing a similar pattern of flights and then landing, disappearing onto the ground.

I nearly gave up as they were so far away, and snow was now falling, but just as I was about to leave the largest flock of birds came a little closer to me, though still more than a hundred yards away. There must have been several hundred birds of many sizes and species. I’m no expert but I could identify some starlings, a few blackbirds, but the largest numbers were made up of fieldfares and redwings.

I have cropped this picture as it shows a redwing more clearly. The pictures of the huge flocks don’t have the best impact for a blip but it was a magnificent spectacle. No peregrines though, well not that I saw. Again I’ll have to come back on a warmer and brighter day.