THE FIELDFARE

THE FIELDFARE was in the past called the ‘snow magpie’. It was known for migrating late and arriving in the south in large flocks along with the first snow. The first thing we hear from such flocks is often clear short scraping ‘gih’ or ‘glih’ notes followed by a soft chattering ‘chaka-chak-chak’. Often flocks come in large, loose formations, like an armada. In Sven Nilsson’s nineteenth-century Scania, these flocks were the last chance of the year to gather in edible birds. Where I live on Gotland, the local birds often begin to move around in groups or small flocks from the end of September, but it is generally not until the end of October or in November that I see any bigger flocks on the move southwards. Rowan, Swedish whitebeam, hawthorn, and juniper bushes are thought to be the focus for their autumn foraging in my district, the berries provided in perfect portion-sized packages. 

In spring it is earthworms that are important: but apples and pears in gardens or in the open countryside are also consumed with great relish. The local birds have usually, with the help of crows, cleared most of the rowanberries when the northern thrush flocks arrive. They stop off, however, if there is food, but move on if gets cold and there is a shortage of fruit and berries. It is mostly solitary individual birds that turn up at the feeding stations in winter, even when larger flocks are present in the surrounding countryside. When it was time to paint a Fieldfare for this book, I started, as usual, to ponder over where in my numerous sketchbooks I have some field sketches. 

Then it suddenly struck me how rarely I have painted or drawn this species in the field – perhaps I have never done it. Certainly, I have painted newly fledged Fieldfare young several times, which I associate with my childhood. When I was small, perhaps ten years old, I always took home young birds barely able to fly in the belief that they had fallen out of the nest. Soon enough I realized that they often hopped out of the nest before they could fly, but my interest in keeping a bird was greater than my intellect. I fed them with worms and thought that they were happy, with their tufts of down on the head, big yellow gape flanges, and cocky expressions. 

They were in some way caricatures of themselves. I had a small menagerie with frogs, caterpillars, slow-worms, and every spring a Fieldfare young or Magpie young. But I cannot recollect having tried to create a picture of a full-grown Fieldfare. Fieldfares nest in my own garden almost every year, so it would have been natural that I had at some time made a drawing of them. All the other thrushes I have painted here in south Gotland, including the rare Ring Ouzel. Perhaps it is a manifestation of the fact that the Fieldfare is altogether too commonplace, but I know that such is not the case. 

Is it its appearance, its hard-to-interpret face with an unusual marking around the eye and black bags under the eyes and an odd blue-grey color and the seemingly irregular black spots? Is it quite simply because it is facially a little unattractive that I have never become absorbed in this bird? Despite that, one of the innumerable faces of Fieldfares should have inspired me to get out the watercolor pad, but I do not remember any such occasion. I think that, among birdwatchers, the Fieldfare ends up lowest of the thrushes in status, the species which produces the least feeling of excitement when we focus on it. 

In autumn we usually look through the flocks to see if any other, rare thrush has sneaked in – at best we find a Redwing, which at least raises the pulse rate a little. Birds that are somewhat uncommon are often accorded an unmerited aesthetical quality in addition; we imagine that we see beauty in what is uncommon. The Fieldfare is an out-of-tune singer, or in any case a very poor one. If somebody approaches their nests they attack by defecating on the intruder. That wonderful songster the Blackbird is Sweden’s national bird while its congener, the Fieldfare, is ignored or regarded as a berry thief. Fieldfare has never achieved a prominent place in Swedish nature-writing or nature-painting. 

Gunnar Brusewitz however, painted at least once, but perhaps several, watercolors of Fieldfares. I find it in his first large-format book, Skissbok (‘Sketchbook’) from 1970. It is the only picture I remember. After having hunted out photographs and brought out a traffic-killed bird from the freezer, I set to work. But I am empty, empty of anything to relate to. I do not have any of my own inner visions of the type which abound on the internet if one searches for photographs of the species where it is perched on a snowy or frosty berry-tree branch. I know that I have on some occasion seen a paler female which had an unusually gentle expression, was timider and had less black beneath the eye, but I do not have a drawing of it. I had to make a late hunt for observations of Fieldfares. 

The first thing I detected was its call. While other thrushes hardly converse in the autumn, the Fieldfare communicates quite frequently. It reverts to brief attempts at the song as if it were seizing the opportunity to rehearse its song; I think that it sounds pleasant at a time when the Blackbird sounds most like a chicken, ‘kuck’ and ‘pick’. And after several different attempts to draw the species, I begin to see the bird, recognize its face, understand which parts convey the character. I came to the conclusion that Fieldfare is, despite everything, both ugly and attractive at the same time. 

For comparison, one could perhaps wonder if the plumages of the other thrushes were designed in Milan or Paris, with black, buffy grey, brown, and a tinge of ochre, whereas the Fieldfare is an odd mixture from London and the 1970s. Yellow shirt with black stripes and squares, wine-red lumber jacket, grey flannel trousers, and black shoes. The Fieldfare is really unusual in its pattern, with an assortment of colors and markings which seem somewhat surprising in comparison with the more sober look of the other thrush species. 

It has, with varying degrees of saturation, a rusty-yellow breast, heavily streaked, changing into dark spade shapes on the side of the breast and then arrowheads or horseshoes over the flanks. The crown, nape, and rump are greys, while the rest of the upper side has a cold reddish-brown tone. The many varying patterns and color tones make it distinctive and easy to recognize. Males generally have a more intensively streaked throat and bigger black spots on the crown. 

Females have narrower, pointed spots on the crown which are difficult to see in the field. Young, during their first winter, often retain a few outer greater coverts, which contrast somewhat with the new coverts in color and pattern. If it is only a pair of the outermost, however, the difference is rarely visible. The juvenile coverts are, moreover, usually shorter than the new ones. Old males exhibit a strong contrast between the warm reddish-brown upper back (mantle), which often appears dark-spotted, and the pale grey lower back and rump. Young females sometimes have a markedly browner tail and can have a softer and more uniform brown color on the back and a more buff than grey rump. 

Some birds in autumn have an almost all-dark bill and this is the rule with young females. Some females have very little streaking on the throat and breast. I was surprised at how big the individual differences were when I finally began to see them with pencil and brush.