Wild Animal Welfare

Wild Fieldfare Winter UK Welfare

Fieldfares arrive from Scandinavia to winter in the UK, depending on berry crops and mild conditions for successful overwintering.

Key Facts

Fieldfare populations wintering in the UK number in the hundreds of thousands most years
They feed primarily on hawthorn and rowan berries, moving as crops become exhausted
Cold snaps drive fieldfares to garden fruit and windfall apples during hard weather
Climate change is reducing the regularity of large fieldfare winter influxes
Fieldfares breed in Scandinavia and use communal defecating as an anti-predator defence

Welfare Considerations

Individual fieldfares spending winter in the UK benefit from abundant berry crops in farmland hedgerows and gardens. Cold weather events that deplete food resources create real welfare challenges - supplementary fruit provision in gardens provides direct welfare benefit during hard weather.

What You Can Do

Leave fallen apples and other fruit for fieldfares during cold winter spells
Maintain hawthorn hedgerows that provide fieldfare winter food
Report fieldfare winter flocks to BirdTrack citizen science monitoring